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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27904423">famelicus</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/handydandynotebook/pseuds/handydandynotebook'>handydandynotebook</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>tort [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abusive Relationships, Amputation, Billy Hargrove &amp; Susan Hargrove Have a Good Relationship, Cannibalism, Crack Treated Seriously, Dark Crack, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Consent, F/F, F/M, Force-Feeding, Fucked Up, Gen, Gore, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mutilation, POV Minor Character, Self-Hatred, Torture, i cannot emphasize enough that this is crack</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:07:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>26,503</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27904423</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/handydandynotebook/pseuds/handydandynotebook</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“That’s the thing they never tell you. You don’t have to be the bigger monster or even the scarier monster. You just have to be the hungrier one. How hungry are you, Susan?” </p><p>“I don’t know what you mean by that, I don’t understand at all.” </p><p>“Oh, but I think you do. And I think you’re ravenous.”</p><p>(second chapter is *not* a followup, just a censored, less gory version of the first chapter)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Billy Hargrove's Mother/Neil Hargrove, Billy Hargrove's Mother/Susan Hargrove, Neil Hargrove/Susan Hargrove</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>tort [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2157399</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>have i overplayed my dead!neil hand? prolly. but i haven't rly written him suffering tbh. so that's what this is. it's gross ngl. dead dove: do not eat, do not proceed if torture squicks you out. when i say torture, i mean <i>torture.</i> i'm not kidding, this gets p graphic at some points and is prolly not squeamish friendly. edit 01-02-21, the second chapter is a censored version of the story with less graphic description for readers who may be interested in the idea but not the gore, like my friend whom i initially edited that version for.</p><p>once again characterized billy's mom as a sheryl goodspeed type bc idk, i miss final space ig. i'm so annoyed this lady doesn't have a canon name. ugh. but since she doesn't have a canon name and i can't feature her heavily without giving her one, "cath" it is bc <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY1ahFCYT5k">easter eggs,</a> amirite?? <s>also a reference to catherine kieu.</s></p><p>i think this is a modern au where susan finds billy's mom on the dark web as like, a contract killer or smth, but idk bc logic doesn't matter this time around. contract killers obvi existed in the 80s too, idk, maybe you wrote letters to them back then. random ik, but <b>we're not here for logic today, today we're here for gratuitous torture porn (and milfs).</b> </p><p>comments modded on this one bc some ppl go cray cray over torture even in a fictional context and i ain't got time for that. <b>final warning: torture and potentially perturbing content ahead.</b></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Susan runs Max to Billy’s apartment. Max gives her a brief hug around the waist before trotting off to the guest room that’s more or less become her own second bedroom, backpack in hand. Billy’s got his hair up today, shirtless, scars on full display. While Susan’s glad he’s become comfortable enough to do so, she’s always a little unnerved at the one like a collapsed starburst, puckered one dead in the center of his chest. That one took the longest to heal. </p><p>He raises a brow at the envelope of money. </p><p>“What? We talked about Cedar Point.” </p><p>“Neil will flip his shit when he finds out this is gone.” </p><p>“He won’t. It’s from my personal stash.”</p><p>“The one you’re supposed to be saving up to leave him with.” </p><p>Susan pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs out. “I’m not here to argue with you, Billy. Just take the money so Max can have a decent vacation for once.” </p><p>“I told you I’d pay for it.” His stare is hard, stubborn. </p><p>“I’ve been with Neil this long, I can last the extra month or so this will set me back. Please take it. You ought to be saving up too, this dirty apartment is not meant to be a long-term arrangement.” </p><p>“Hey,” he protests. “My apartment is not dirty.” </p><p>“You haven’t vacuumed in weeks.” Susan chuckles and shakes her head, gesturing to the floor. There are little crumbs and lint fuzzes scattered across the carpet. It isn’t filthy per se, but certainly neglected by Susan’s standards. </p><p>“Have to,” Billy insists, crossing his arms. “It’s a shitty vacuum, that’s all.” </p><p>“Well, did you remember to empty the canister?” </p><p>There is a pause and then a one-shouldered shrug. </p><p>“You wouldn’t mind if I vacuumed, would you?” Susan asks, smiling sheepishly. </p><p>Billy rolls his eyes. </p><p>“It’ll only take a minute,” Susan insist. “I’ll just give it a quick once over and be out of your hair. I couldn’t stay even if I wanted to, I’ve got an appointment to make.”</p><p>“Sure.” Billy gestures to the closet door in the living room. “Vacuum’s in there, go wild.” </p><p>Susan winds her way around the beaten secondhand furniture. Max slips in from the short hallway, props her elbows on the back of the couch. </p><p>“What appointment?” she asks. </p><p>Susan licks her lips as she extracts the vacuum from the mess of the closet. Sure enough, the canister is full of dust bunnies. She smiles fondly and keeps it to herself. </p><p>“With an exterminator. We’ve had a vermin problem for a long time now and I’m finally ready to stop dragging my feet.” </p><hr/><p>She answers the door topless. Dressed in nothing but blue jeans and sunglasses, grabs Susan’s wrist and pulls her inside the hotel room. Susan stammers out a greeting, purposely averting her eyes to the outdated wallpaper. </p><p>“Jesus, it’s like you’ve never seen a pair of tits before.” </p><p>Susan’s mouth goes dry. </p><p>“They’re not gonna bite you,” she huffs, amused as she walks around Susan in a slow circle, sizing her up. “Though I might.” </p><p>“W-What?” </p><p>“Strip.” </p><p>Susan gapes, at a loss. </p><p>The woman stops walking. She lifts her sunglasses and peers at Susan with hard eyes. Her nostrils flare as she shakes her head to herself, hand coming up in an indecisive wiggle. </p><p>“You know what, Hargrove? This whole situation, I don’t know, it's giving me the heebie-jeebies.” </p><p>“W-What?” Susan repeats, nervously rubbing at her arm. “Why?” </p><p>“I haven’t seen hide nor hair of my ex-husband in over a decade. Then out of the blue, his second wife decides to take him out. And finds me, of all people, to do just that. That’s a pretty big coincidence, wouldn’t you say so?”</p><p>“Uhm, yes, I suppose so.” </p><p>“Seems a little fishy at first glance, don’t you think?” </p><p>“It…when you put it that way, I can understand how.” </p><p>“Good. So now that we’re on the same page, you’re going to strip naked for me. Right here, right now, so we can prove you’re not wearing a wire.” </p><p>Susan hesitates, pulse quickening. </p><p>“Now,” she repeats, snapping her fingers. “This ain’t the circus, Mrs. Hargrove, I don’t like funny business.” </p><p>“Okay.” Susan exhales and slips off her flats. She unbuttons her shirt with shaky fingers and wiggles her capris down her hips. </p><p>The woman starts circling her again, blonde waves bouncing against her shoulders. “Bra and undies too, don’t be shy.” </p><p>Susan feels herself flush hot with embarrassment but she does as she’s told. Her underwear pools around her bare feet. She stretches her arms forward and the bra slides off. </p><p>“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” </p><p>Susan swallows and shakes her head. </p><p>“Now we can trust each other. Well, almost. I’ve got a few rules you need to follow.” </p><p>“Okay,” Susan agrees carefully. </p><p>“First rule, I get to do this the way I want to do this. I have a personal score to settle with Neil, so I’m going to take my time. I’m going to go nice and slow, and I’m going to enjoy it. You will not object. I’m doing this for you for free because I was where you are and I know what it’s like. If you don’t appreciate my methods, you will keep this in mind, hold your tongue, and thank me anyway.” </p><p>Susan nods in assent. </p><p>“Second rule, we don’t talk about my kid. Like I said, I have personal—“ </p><p>“With all due respect,” Susan interrupts, lifting her head. “I don’t think of Billy as yours at all. I consider him mine.” </p><p>And she has, for some time now. </p><p>This gives the blonde pause. Something different briefly flickers over her face. Before Susan can identify it, her impassive mask resumes. </p><p>“Fine. Third rule, you will assist me when I ask for it. I’m perfectly capable of handling this myself, but since you won’t be compensating me monetarily, your participation is a matter of personal insurance.” </p><p>Susan gulps. “You th-think I’d turn on you?” </p><p>“I think your assistance will ensure that you don’t.” Unblinking blue eyes bore into Susan’s soul. </p><p>She feels sick to her stomach but bows her head in resignation anyway. It’s too late to turn back now. </p><p>“I’ll be staying with you for up to a week.” </p><p>Susan’s eyes widen and so does the killer’s grin. </p><p>“I told you already, I want to take my time with this. It’s possible we may be seen together or that I will be seen at your residence. If anyone asks about me, my name is Cath Jennings. I’m an old friend from high school. We were in the scrapbooking club together and I stopped by for a visit on my way to see relatives who live upstate.” </p><p>Susan blinks slowly as she absorbs the information. </p><p>“You may call me Cath if it helps you memorize this story. You may call me whatever you wish, provided I don't find it insulting.” </p><p>“Cath is fine with me…” </p><p>“Do you agree to abide by the rules I’ve explained to you?” </p><p>“I do.” </p><p>“Prove it.” </p><p>“How—“ </p><p>“On your knees.” </p><p>Susan startles. The realization that she doesn’t understand the depth of what she’s gotten herself into at all hits her with the velocity of a car crash. She swallows and steadily lowers herself to her knees, trying not to shiver as chills rake her spine and the air brushes over her bare flesh.  </p><p>“Good, that’s what I like to see.” The woman she’ll now think of as Cath approaches and stretches her leg so that her bare foot hovers inches away from Susan’s face, toenails polished sapphire blue. </p><p>“I ask that you demonstrate your loyalty and cooperation with a kiss.” </p><p>Susan raises her eyes as her mouth falls in bewilderment. </p><p>“One simple kiss.” </p><p>She’s serious. She's actually serious.</p><p>"No one else will kill for you for free, sweetheart. If I tell you to put on a tutu and do backflips, I guarantee it's in your best interests to comply." </p><p>It’s certainly far too late to turn back now. Susan curls her fingers around Cath’s ankle and gentle presses her lips to the top of her foot. </p><p>“Now that wasn't so hard." She smirks, insolent and infernal. "We’re going to have a lot of fun together, you and I.” </p><hr/><p>Cath arrives in a windowless gray van while Neil is at work. She parks on the curb. Susan helps her unload upon request and much unloading there is to do. The back of the van is stuffed with totes, duffle bags, suitcases, and half a dozen coolers. Some of the luggage is rather heavy and Susan wonders what’s inside. </p><p>They put everything in Billy’s old room turned spare bedroom. He’s been moved out for almost a year now and took mostly everything with him. The mattress remains. Susan wanted him to have a new one in his new apartment, something less worn and more comfortable. </p><p>Convincing Neil to help pay for Billy’s new bed was a delicate, perilous affair accomplished only with ego stroking and Susan introducing the concept in a way that emphasized the benefit to the family rather than to Billy. Moving a heavy mattress down a narrow hallway was a cumbersome affair, didn’t Neil remember huffing and puffing when they’d moved it in. Buying Billy a new mattress didn’t mean springing for some memory foam king size, of course not, it meant getting him something smaller, lighter, easier to maneuver into a quaint apartment without having to hire help. And wouldn’t it be nice to have a guest room on Cherry Lane.</p><p>As if the Hargrove household ever had guests. Susan stacks suitcases and coolers and absently notes that the nonexistent Cath Jennings from the scrapbooking club she was never in is the first guest the room has actually seen since being converted. Only it’s at this point Cath gives herself a new name. </p><p>“Think of me as Santa Claus. You’re my little helper elf. This is our workshop.” She smirks and gestures around the room. “In my luggage are our toymaker tools.” </p><p>Susan finds it somewhat unnerving how playful she is about this. Susan herself is a ball of anxiety, fingernails eaten down to the quick and heart kicking in her chest like a spooked hare. Of course she doesn’t say as much. Of course she smiles a dulcet smile and objects to nothing. </p><p>“You have a clothes iron, don’t you?” </p><p>“Um, yes.” </p><p>“That’ll work.” Cath inclines her head. “Go get it.” </p><p>Susan fetches the iron from the linen closet. </p><p>“So the plug is here, which means we’ll put the tarp there.” Cath seems like she’s talking to herself more than Susan as she points, her index finger moving in a lazy circle. “That should reach.” </p><p>She unzips one of her duffles and extracts what appears to be a brand new tarp, neatly folded and clean as a whistle. She unfolds it quickly and Susan helps her spread it across the floor. Susan then uncoils the iron cord and plugs it in. </p><p>“What’re you doing?” Cath narrows her eyes. </p><p>“I’m going to iron out the wrinkles.” Susan nods to the tarp. “Isn’t that why you wanted the iron?” </p><p>Cath throws her head back and laughs this savage hyena laugh. The sound of it puts feelings in Susan’s stomach she isn’t sure what to do with. </p><hr/><p>Neil walks through the front door and bends to take his shoes off. </p><p>“Did you see that van, Susan?” he calls into the living room where she stands as still as a statue even though her heart races with anxiety. </p><p>Cath peels herself off the wall behind him, syringe in hand. </p><p>Neil lifts his head. “Do you know who it—“ </p><p>She moves like a viper. Her elbow cuts through the air and the needle disappears into Neil’s jugular. His mouth falls as she pushes the plunger in and retracts just as quickly. Cath steps back and Neil collapses to the floor. </p><p>It happens so fast Susan scarcely believes it. Neil lies twitching, gazing up into nothing Susan can see. </p><p>“C’mon,” Cath beckons, wiggling her hand. “Grab a leg, help me drag him.” </p><p>“B-But his eyes are still open.” </p><p>“That’s normal with special K, don’t worry about it. Twitchy or not, he’s totally harmless.” </p><p>The only Special K Susan knows is the cereal. She doesn’t say that. She doesn’t do anything. </p><p>“Susan.” Cath snaps her fingers. “You’re my elf, remember? Workshop time.” </p><p>Susan makes her way over and obediently grabs a leg. Neil is slack and heavy, heavier than Cath’s luggage. But between the two of them, dragging him down the hall is a manageable task. They get him on the tarp and pause for a breather. His eyes are still open. Susan finds this extremely eerie and disconcerting. </p><p>“Now we strip him and immobilize him.”</p><p>She says it so simply. The way Susan might recite baking instructions. </p><p>“I don’t…like him looking at me.” She chews her painfully short thumbnail. </p><p>“He’s not actually looking at you. He’s out, baby, your nerves are just messing with your head.” </p><p>“I mean, I know, but.” Susan gives herself a jerk. “I’m sorry. I’m being silly, I suppose.” </p><p>She hired an assassin with a grudge she cannot actually afford to pay. What did she expect. </p><p>“Yes, you are.” There’s a smirk tugging at Cath’s lips as she unzips one of her duffles, the pine green one about as long as a golf bag. </p><p>There are not golf clubs inside. There are hammers. Two sledgehammers, one with a wooden handle, another with a synthetic grip. There is a smaller claw hammer and an even smaller different hammer with an odd head shape Susan can’t identify. </p><p>Cath undoes the buckles in a slimmer leather bag that isn’t quite a bag, but a knife roll. Cath doesn’t choose any of the knifes. She chooses a pair of long shears and snips at Neil’s clothes until he’s completely exposed, naked as could be, every unflattering mole uncovered, penis flaccid in a thatch of dark hair. </p><p>“Break his fingers.” </p><p>“What?” </p><p>“I told you, this is the part where we immobilize him. You’re new, so you’ll start with the fingers because they’re nice and easy. Bend them back until they snap, it’s a piece of cake.” </p><p>Susan inhales through her nose. She picks up Neil’s limp arm, the tiny hairs on her own arms standing up as her skin prickles. Part of her feels like this isn’t real. Like Neil is playing possum and plans to pop up any second now. That he’ll rip his arm out of her hands and scream at her until she deafens. That his limp fingers will curl into a fist and today will finally be the day he punches her in the face. </p><p>Susan starts with his pinky. She bends it back until there’s a snap and then even further, touching it to the back of his hand. </p><p>He does not pop up. He cannot make a fist with the way the crooked pinky immediately balloons. Susan somehow feels ill and elated at the same time. His fingers snap like twigs in her hands. She gets so caught up in it, she doesn’t even look Cath’s way until the aroma of cooking meat coasts through the air. </p><p>Neil’s foot is gushing blood. Waves of ruby burst forth and wash over the tarp and then Cath brings down the iron what must be a second time. The bleeding stops and the aroma grows stronger. </p><p>“One achilles down, one to go,” Cath hums, lazy smile on her lips as she blinks to Susan. “He won’t be able to walk anymore but we’re still going to break bones.” </p><p>That’s what the sledgehammers turn out to be for. Cath tells her to aim for the joints. She does some coke before this part, offers Susan a bump that she turns down. Her eyes are the feral eyes of a frothing rabid animal. Her aim is true. She swings her hammer like John Henry battling against the steam drill, shatters Neil’s kneecaps without breaking a sweat. </p><p>Susan does break a sweat but she tries to keep up anyway. Adjusts and readjusts her grip on the handle and puts her entire body behind her swings. Strikes the same spot until something cracks. His ribs go easier than his collarbones. Sweat collects in Susan’s lashes like dewdrops but she swings and she swings because a murderer told her to swing and because of the fear of what will happen if she does not swing, if Neil is left with enough mobility to cause harm. </p><p>She swings until there are ugly cracks and revolting crunches. Her swings are not as precise nor measured as Cath’s. Her feet leave the floor and occasionally she stumbles, misses, hits his belly when she’d meant to hit his pelvis. Nevertheless, she feels the impact of her strikes, of the giving beneath the hammer's heavy head. She’s puffing and panting and may have blisters forming on her palms— Cath wears gloves but hadn’t offered Susan a pair. Susan strives to break bones because she must, because one very frightening person commanded it of her and another very frightening person must be incapacitated. </p><p>Susan swings because it is necessary and takes no perverse satisfaction in her actions. The bit of joy she’d found in breaking his fingers was tempered and fleeting, it’s not— she’s a pacifist under the best of circumstances, of course she is. A gentle soul. </p><p>By the end of it, Susan is dripping perspiration. Cath only wears a slight sheen, seems as if shimmering rather than sweating. Neil’s twisted limbs swell until they’re fat as those blubbery seals lying on the beach Susan misses with all her heart. The bruising is a sight to behold, dark splatters in every shade of purple from wisteria to aubergine. A troubled artist's interpretation of violet violence. </p><p>“Not bad,” Cath declares, looking her up and down. “Better than I would’ve thought, to tell you the truth. You didn’t even barf.” </p><p>Susan rolls the words around in her head and decides this is probably a compliment and that she should probably be polite. </p><p>“Thank you.” </p><p>Cath smirks and rips off her shirt, followed by her bra. Perhaps it’s because she’s overheated. Perhaps she just likes taking her shirt off. Susan could never be so brazen with her breasts on display, already feels herself flush when she glimpses Cath’s. She’d blush to the point of incinerating herself if she walked around like that. </p><p>Cath duct tapes Neil’s mouth shut. “Can’t let him scream, can we?” </p><p>“I suppose not.” </p><p>“Well, that worked up an appetite. What you got in the fridge?” </p><hr/><p>Susan floats through the first twenty-four hours of it. Supposes she might be in some kind of shock. On the first morning Cath makes Neil quit his job so he will not be missed. Susan dials the number and holds the phone to his head while Cath threatens his testicles with the nail gun. He’s too heavily injured to doubt the threat. Complies and quits over the phone, tells his boss he found a better opportunity elsewhere. </p><p>“Oh, honey,” Cath purrs as Susan pulls the phone away. “Aren’t you glad I’m home?” </p><p>“You bitch,” he roars at her, veins bulging in rage even as pain consumes every feature. “This is the thanks I get for raising your goddamn hell spawn—“ </p><p>“No,” Susan decides, backhanding him fiercely of her own volition. It is the only act of violence she will take something positive away from today. “You don’t get to insult Billy anymore.” </p><p>And Neil is too stunned to even toss his head when Cath slaps the tape back on. </p><p>“Is there anyone else who needs to hear from him?” Cath asks. “Anyone who will miss him, or sniff around if he doesn’t show somewhere?” </p><p>Susan pauses to consider these questions in depth. There isn’t. She knows for a fact there isn’t because her own schedule is built around Neil’s schedule, Neil’s presence, and providing what Neil wants when he wants it. She has taking dinner out of the oven down to a science so that its readiness coincides with his arrival as exactly as possible. </p><p>“No.” </p><p>“Are you sure?” </p><p>“Yes.” </p><p>Cath nods her head and slips her gloves back on. “In that case, there’s no reason for him to continue to possess the fine privilege of speech.” </p><p>Cath breaks Neil’s jaw with a swift, gleeful swing of the sledgehammer. He flinches on the tarp and stills just as quickly when the action visibly causes great pain. </p><p>“Break it on the other side.” </p><p>“Hm?” </p><p>“Come on, right at the joint, just like I told you.” Cath extends the handle in Susan’s direction. “Let’s see if we can get his mouth to do that snake thing, wouldn’t that be neat?” </p><p>“Oh, I don’t—“ </p><p>“You do,” she insists. “You want to.” </p><p>Susan swallows and takes the hammer. Something happens. She isn’t quite present for what, even though her body is moving. Something loud, something wet. </p><p>Neil’s jaw resembles that of an unhinged python mouth enough to make Cath happy. She does a little twirl and then kneels down, grabbing the smaller hammer with the strange head. That’s the one she uses to smash his teeth in. After the fact Susan has to get down and help her remove the tooth shards from his gums. Cath has different pliers for different teeth and Susan has some kind of opinion on this. Maybe her opinion is that she’s in over her head. </p><p>“Too bad we can’t smelt these,” Cath hums, holding up one of several gold crowns. </p><p>Susan doesn’t even know what to make of that. Doesn’t want to think about it. Knows for a fact she’s in over her head, but then, she’s been in over her head for years. Really, what difference should it make now. </p><p>Once Neil is sufficiently toothless, Cath cuts out his tongue. The clothes iron won't fit in his mouth but Susan's curling iron does. </p><hr/><p>It’s the way she swaggers over the threshold when she walks into the room. The particular way she tosses her head. The nimble flick of her fingers when she adjusts her sunglasses. The pivot of her hips as Susan beholds her in this very moment, the casually confident contrapposto of her body in the doorframe, no top and tight jeans. </p><p>“You’re staring at me.” </p><p>“S-Sorry.” </p><p>“I got something on my face?” </p><p>It’s right there too, in the way her nose scrunches up, and Susan shakes her head. </p><p>“No, it’s just…you move like him. Well, I suppose he moves like you, rather.” </p><p>“Damn it.” Cath’s gaze goes steely. “You just broke rule number two.” </p><p>“I’m sorry.” Susan ducks her head. </p><p>“You know what happens when you break the rules?” She pushes off the doorframe and struts over, steps quick and dangerous. </p><p>She seizes Susan by the face, fingers forcefully clenching around her chin. Susan stumbles for an apology, thoughts racing. Panicky syllables squeak off her tongue, nothing coherent managed before Cath cackles in her face. </p><p>“Calm your tits, I’m just messing around.” She lets go of Susan’s face, rakes her hand back over her mane of blonde. “Not gonna hurt you. I’m not a violent person.” </p><p>At this, Susan can only gape. </p><p>Cath rolls her eyes. </p><p>“Seriously, I’m not.” She shuffles to the side and plops down on the couch beside Susan. “This is only the third time I’ve ever tortured anybody and the first time I’ve enjoyed it. But third time’s the charm, or so they say.” </p><p>“…you kill people for a living,” Susan mumbles, mystified. </p><p>“Not violently. Shit, Sue, it’s not how it is in the movies. Movies are all guns, guns, and more guns, people’s heads exploding like water balloons.” Cath pops her lips and opens her hands to mime explosions, a gesture made all the more discomforting by the red residue of Neil’s blood staining her palms. “Usually it’s just the tiny poke of a needle. One jab and boom, heart attack. Nothing flashy, nice and quick.” </p><p>“Oh,” Susan says. She has no idea what else to say. “Oh.” </p><p>“Exploding heads aren’t very subtle.” She chuckles and it’s jarring, this playful twinkle in her eye. “If that’s what it was like, I would’ve been caught a long time ago.” </p><p>Susan finds herself disquieted and swallows because she does not trust herself to speak. </p><p>“Oh, don’t look at me like that.” </p><p>“I’m n-not—“ </p><p>“You are,” Cath growls, kicking her feet up on the coffee table. “Half of ‘em are bastards just like Neil, some even worse. People don’t usually make the kind of enemies who want them dead outta nowhere. Besides, I’m not doing anything that wouldn’t happen eventually anyway.” </p><p>Susan stares at the polished toenails resting on her polished table and one of those bloodstained hands comes to rest on her knee. Gives a gentle squeeze. </p><p>“Death is the one and only thing in this big fucked up world everyone has in common. We all die sooner or later. Folks just pay me the big bucks to make it sooner.” </p><p>“How many?” she asks quietly. </p><p>“We both know you don’t actually want the answer to that question.” </p><p>“But isn’t it hard?” </p><p>Thoughtfulness drapes Cath’s features. She hums in her throat and flexes the fingers still resting on Susan’s knee. </p><p>“Not usually, no. Sometimes I worry about getting caught. If anything could get me caught, it’d be this business with Neil. When I got into this line of work, some of the first advice I heard was never to kill anybody I know. Kill somebody you know, that’s how you get caught.” </p><p>Susan chews her lip. </p><p>“But I don’t think we’ll get caught. I think we’re being pretty darn careful, don’t you?” </p><p>“I, um…I honestly don’t know how to quantify that.” </p><p>Cath smirks, lazily draws her hand higher up Susan’s leg, fingertips brushing the inside of her thigh. </p><p>“You will.” </p><p>There are things inside Susan that she does not wish to confront, so she turns the television on instead. She and the nonviolent murderer beside her watch afternoon sitcoms. That hand leaves her knee but returns to it every now and then, squeezes or inches even higher. It’s somewhat surreal to be watching sitcoms while her husband lies on a bloody tarp mere rooms away, unfathomably, utterly harmless with feces smearing the seam of his rear and blisters oozing on his ruined skin. </p><p>But Susan laughs anyway at the wacky antics of people who don’t exist and Cath laughs too, right from the belly. She laughs until she gets the remote away from Susan early in the evening. Presses the mute button on a commercial break. </p><p>“So Billy moves like me, huh?” </p><p>At first Susan doesn’t answer. She gauges the absence of expression on Cath’s face, wonders if this is a trap. If it is a trap, wonders if she’ll face some kind of retaliation. Sitting on the couch and laughing at sitcoms doesn’t make Cath any less threatening. Susan’s seen with her own eyes what she can do and how easily she can do it. </p><p>As if sensing her worries, Cath flaps a hand. </p><p>“I know, I’m breaking my own rule now. But I’m curious.” </p><p>“…he does.” Susan bobs her head. “He certainly does.” </p><p>“Heh.” A gentle kind of smile twitches on her lips. “Sounds about right. Billy was a real momma’s boy back when he was younger. Followed me around like a little puppy dog right up until the day I left.” </p><p>Susan doesn’t know if she actually wants to know more. Cath continues anyway. </p><p>“Surprised me how much he took to me. I’d dropped ‘im a couple times when he was a baby. Didn’t mean to, but he squirmed a lot and with babies, you know— sometimes the puke just shoots outta them when you least expect and you’re just caught off guard, and your hands slip. You had one, you know what I mean.” </p><p>Susan never, ever dropped Max, but she suppresses her abject horror and nods along. </p><p>“He wasn’t hurt, really. Swear that baby had a skull like a bowling ball…plenty of padding too, he was fat as fuck. Well, maybe you know that. Neil ever show you pictures?” </p><p>“No,” Susan answers honestly. “He never did.” </p><p>“Figures. He’s not the sentimental type. But believe me, Billy was a chunker. And I figured he’d hate me, like he’d instinctively remember how I dropped him even when he got bigger.” Cath fiddles with the remote, breathes a sigh. “But nah. Billy took to me early on. And I was good at a lot of the mom stuff. Reading to him, playing with him, swimming classes. Wasn’t perfect, didn’t really know how to deal with the temper tantrums. That’s when Neil took over. Wasn’t so great at making sure he was eating the right stuff, either. Couldn’t cook for shit, still can’t. How about you?” </p><p>“I like to think I can cook.” Susan tents her fingers, un-tents them. Knits them, unknits them. “I mean, I certainly couldn’t be a chef at a fancy restaurant, but I have a lot of recipes under my belt.”</p><p>“I get the feeling you’re being modest.” Cath arches a brow. </p><p>Pride is a sin, isn’t it. </p><p>“Well…I don’t like to boast about my roasts, but there’s never any leftovers.” </p><p>To hell with sin. </p><p>Cath huffs a laugh and playfully bumps against Susan’s shoulder. </p><p>“Of course you can cook. Neil hated me so much, he went and found himself my motherfucking antithesis.” She clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “I mostly stuck to pre-made stuff. Instant noodles, Bisquick, frozen pizzas. This one night I tried to make a meatloaf from scratch…ended up pulling what looked like a giant lump of coal from the oven. Smoke detectors were screaming bloody murder, pan burned so bad we had to throw it out.” </p><p>Susan winces in sympathy, imagining the scene. Truth be told, she can relate. Sure, she’s a good cook now but it’s not as if she was born with a ladle in her hand. </p><p>“That was the first time he hit me.” </p><p>Susan stomach lurches. </p><p>“I didn’t even see it coming. And I should have. I really should have, but I was young and stupid and I wanted to believe in good things.” </p><p>Susan opens her mouth to speak but Cath suddenly jolts. She jumps up from the couch, eyes electrified. </p><p>“Come on,” she says, snatching Susan’s hand. “I was going to save this one for the grand finale but fuck it! I’m getting impatient.” </p><p>Susan is given no further explanation as she’s pulled off the couch. She awkwardly stumbles around the coffee table as Cath hurries her off to what used to be Billy’s room. Susan can’t tell if Neil is already conscious or if he wakes when Cath jerks him by the hair. She holds his head up as she slides one of the coolers behind his neck to keep it propped. </p><p>“Plug the iron in, Susan.” </p><p>Susan swallows and does as she is told. Neil’s rheumy eyes rove to her and she looks away. Cath steps over the tarp and takes her hand again, tugging her so they’re both in Neil’s direct sightline. </p><p>“I want him hard for this, but I’m sure as hell not jerking him off.”</p><p>“What?” Susan’s brow furrows. </p><p>Cath’s lips unfurl in a wicked goblin grin, then she leans in, covering Susan’s. Susan gasps softly against her mouth, thoughts fracturing, scattered as the other woman slides her hands beneath her shirt. Cath doesn’t break the kiss and pushes forward, urging Susan back until she hits the wall, nudging her legs open with a nimble knee.</p><p>Susan realizes she should do something with her hands. She puts her hands on Cath’s waist supposing that’s where Cath probably wants them to be. Cath’s fingers deftly undo her bra strap and Susan’s mind is all static as that knee between her legs becomes more insistent, sliding up between her thighs. </p><p>Susan doesn’t know exactly what’s happening but thinks she understands enough to know what she is meant to do. She grinds herself against Cath’s knee so hard she can feel the seam in the crotch of her jeans digging into her center. Cath jams up and Susan grinds down and slides her mouth open against her hungry tongue. </p><p>Heart surges behind the fabric of her jeans. She’s sweltering fiercely under her panties but cold, cold, cold everywhere else and she knows. She knows Neil is watching, that Neil has no choice but to watch. If he closed his lids, Cath would surely cut them off. </p><p>Susan hired a professional but she suspects the person kissing her is actually someone in pain. It might make her more dangerous than less, Susan thinks. Maybe that’s what she can taste in her mouth, maybe that’s what’s pushing against her overheated cunt and thrumming through those fingers as they squeeze her breasts until they ache. </p><p>It’s aching and friction and fire and wet. Susan knows things even around the static in her head. Her heart flutters with emotion that can’t be pleasure because her stomach’s sticking. Her underwear is soaked as Cath pulls away. The strand of saliva connecting their lips severs when she looks down at Neil on the floor. </p><p>“Half hard is good enough,” Cath decides. </p><p>Susan blinks at it, her husband’s cock half-mast. She’s surprised he even managed that level of arousal given the state he’s in, but she supposes that is besides the point. The point is the hunting knife Cath selects from her arsenal of tools. </p><p>Susan wants to look away and finds she cannot. The keen sliver edge pierces into the head. Cath fluidly slices down the length of the cock, splitting it wide open. Neil thrashes his bull head, making these awful animal noises in his throat. Blood pours between his thighs, flooding the coarse forest of pubic hair. </p><p>Cath cackles and moves the knife downward. She severs Neil’s sac in a deft circuit. More blood gushes forth as his balls slap the tarp, dark as cranberry sauce. Neil’s head thrashes some more, eyes rolling back in his skull. His broken jaw hangs crooked and the animals noises don’t stop. </p><p>Cath shears the penis entirely, pinching the mutilated sides together in one hand as the opposite drags in several swift circuits around the base. The blood is so dark, so much darker than Susan expected it to be. </p><p>“Iron,” Cath commands. </p><p>Susan’s hands shake but she tightens her grip and kneels anyway. She thrusts the hot soleplate against the bleeding, messy ruin where her husband’s genitalia was. There is a loud hiss as steam rises in the air. Neil’s head jerks forward with a wretched sound that makes Susan want to smother him, this throaty noise that might’ve been a scream were he not toothless, tongueless, broken jawed. </p><p>Neil vomits as his head flops back. Cath slaps his face to the side and it dribbles from the corner of his lips, spilling onto the tarp. The sickly sweet scent of sizzling meat suffuses Susan’s nostrils. </p><p>“Kill him,” Susan finds herself begging. “Please, please kill him now. I can’t stand that look in his eyes.” </p><p>The look in Neil’s eyes is everything Susan’s felt herself for so long, it’s never really left her. The helplessness that hooks claws into your stomach and drags who you want to be right out of you. The despair that sucks you dry and drowns your spirits. In Neil’s eyes, she sees the pain of husking, the emptiest misery she knows. </p><p>“You can’t stand it?” Cath repeats. “Fine.” </p><p>She angles Neil’s head toward the ceiling again. She grips his jaw to keep his head from thrashing as she slashes the knife across his eyes. They burst and Cath releases his jaw. Neil whips his head like a beast with ear mites. Fluid spills from the sockets, vitreous running down his tumid face like egg yolk and catching in the bristles of his facial hair. </p><p>“There, no more look in his eyes. Use the iron.” </p><p>Susan steels herself against the urge to gag and rises on her knees, moving toward his head. She presses the soleplate down on one messy socket. Then the other. </p><p>“Have you heard of rocky mountain oysters?” </p><p>“I haven’t,” Susan admits. </p><p>“Deep fried bull testicles,” Cath says. “Delicious. A damn delicacy if they’re prepared right.” </p><p>A strange grin stretches her lips from ear to ear she she holds up Neil’s bloodied sac. </p><p>“However,” she goes on, and Susan wouldn’t have thought it possible to sound vicious and jolly at the same time, but she does. Her voice rings viciously jolly, every syllable a razored candy cane. “We all know I can’t cook for shit. So if Susan hasn’t heard of them and I can’t cook, I guess we’ll just have to do something else.”</p><p>Susan wants to speak and somehow, somehow the words just tangle up on her tongue. </p><p>“Got a blender, don’t you, Susan? Housewife broad like you must’ve got a blender for some Christmas or birthday, no?” Cath lifts a brow. </p><p>“Yes,” she finally manages. “We have a blender.” </p><p>“Perfect. Grab his cock.” </p><p>Cath stands up and heads into the hallway, Neil’s scrotum clutched in her hand. Susan finds herself fretting about the possibility of it dripping blood on her carpet. She finds herself thinking that with all the preparation Cath has done, with how methodical she is about everything, she should’ve had a plastic bag handy to put that in. Susan isn’t particularly in the mood to scrub ballsack blood out of her carpet. </p><p>Susan picks up the dismembered penis, stares at it flaccid and spliced in her hands. It was inside of her countless times. It practically split her open whenever Neil was in one of those moods. It impregnated her once, a situation she’d had taken care of quickly, discreetly, heartbreakingly, secret to everyone but her stepson. Now it’s sliced like a polish sausage in her hands and growing cool from the lack of circulation. It smells faintly of urine but mostly of blood, and it can’t hurt her anymore. No longer Neil’s, it’s just meat. </p><p>Susan rises to her feet. She shuffles to the kitchen with her husband’s split penis cupped in her hands, carefully so she doesn’t drip any blood on the floor. She doesn’t know when she starts laughing. She doesn’t know when she starts crying, either. </p><p>She only knows that once she makes it over the threshold, she is both laughing and crying and the look Cath gives her is simply something else entirely. </p><p>“Fuck, Susan, don’t go all Loony Toons on me.” </p><p>Cath is at the counter, evidently having found the blender, in the middle of removing its lid. She drops Neil’s testicles inside. They land with a soft plunk.</p><p>“I’m never going to be able to make smoothies with that blender again,” Susan says, an observation more than a protest. </p><p>Cath pays no mind and hits the button. Susan listens to the whirr of the blades as they whizz through the flesh and fibrous tissue. It’s disgusting. It’s so disgusting and Susan’s still crying, still laughing. Nervous notes of laughter hiccup up her throat while tears trickle down her cheeks. Her mouth tastes like salt. Her upper lip is sticky with mucus. She wants to wipe it away but she still has a dismembered penis in her hands. </p><p>When what’s inside the blender becomes a slurry red mash that rather disturbingly resembles chunky strawberry applesauce, Cath turns it off. She takes a glass out of the cabinet and pops the top off the blender, transferring the mash to the cup. </p><p>“This is his dinner,” Cath declares. “What you’ve got will be his breakfast. We’ll keep it in the fridge.” </p><p>Susan is sure there’s a part of her that isn’t okay with this. She keeps finding herself in these positions. Where she isn’t okay with things but she can’t stop them either. Where she isn’t okay but she has to be, because not being okay will only make things worse, actually. </p><p>Susan dumps Neil’s member into the blender and reseals the lid. She turns the button on. The blades whirr through spongy tissue and Susan isn’t sure if the sound of it is less disgusting this time, or if she’s simply more prepared for it. She blows her nose into a napkin and brushes her tears off on the back of her sleeve. </p><p>When the penis is thoroughly pureed, she presses the button again. The blades cease whirring. Cath said to refrigerate it, so that’s what she does. She removes the blender container from the base and makes room for it on the top shelf, in between the eggs and milk. </p><p>“You’ll hold his mouth open and I’ll pour it in, okay?” </p><p>“Okay,” Susan agrees, as if disagreement were an option. </p><p>When they return to the bedroom, Susan lowers herself to her knees on either side of Neil’s head. She presses them against his temples, holding his head in place. In this moment, she feels an unsettling but undeniable sense of gratitude that he doesn’t have eyes anymore. She doesn’t think she’d be able to stomach him staring up at her from this angle. The glistening pink and shockingly pale webbing of burned flesh is not particularly pleasant to gaze upon, but Susan can peer down at it and know he is not looking back at her. He can’t see her and this is some kind of comforting. </p><p>She slides her hands over his crooked jaw. Because of the way it’s broken it can’t fully close, but Susan opens it wider anyway. She can feel bone fragments shifting under her touch. She hears it too, the quiet grinding. </p><p>“Yes, Susan,” Cath praises. “Just like that.” </p><p>She moves the rim of the glass over his lip and tilts so slowly, the slowest Susan thinks she’s ever watched her do anything. A bit of slurry mash dribbles into Neil’s mouth. He makes a small noise in his throat and tries to turn his head but Susan’s knees are like a clamp, holding fast and keeping him fixed. </p><p>“I’d swallow if I were you,” Cath suggests above him, voice stunningly soft. “If you throw up, I’ll make you eat your vomit. You know I will.” </p><p>Whatever scraps of resistance Neil had left leak out of him. Susan swears she can feel it happen. The will to fight dissipating inside him like it’s dissipated inside her time and time again. She feels it happen right between her knees. </p><p>Cath pours and Neil swallows, chunk by slurry chunk. The reek of it is something else, liquified and raw. A few pubic hairs poke up from the mash here and there, curling thin and black through the strawberry applesauce pulp. </p><p>Neil’s throat bobs with every gulp. </p><p>It doesn’t matter if Susan’s okay with it or not. When has it ever. Maybe she isn’t quite okay with this but if should happen to anyone, it should happen to Neil. She feels many things for Neil. Sympathy is not one of them. </p><p>A bit of mash slurps over Susan’s thumb, moist and unpleasant against her skin. She doesn’t shudder even though it’s revolting. </p><p>“Almost done,” Cath taunts, tilting the glass up higher. </p><p>The last of it slides down Neil’s throat. Susan watches him swallow and releases. She stands up and walks around Cath to wash her hands in the bathroom sink. </p><p>Shortly after, Cath goes to bed. Susan knows she couldn’t sleep if she tried. She cleans instead. She uses a lot of bleach and scrubs until her eyes water from the scent, and even longer after, when she’s so accustomed she can hardly smell it at all. </p><hr/><p>Susan holds Neil’s head with her knees again in the morning, while Cath slowly pours the lumpy puree of his penis down his throat. He does throw up this time and Susan has to shuffle back so Cath can smack his head to the side, prevent him from choking on it. It spews out of him and splashes the tarp and the noises he makes in the wake of it are so wretched Susan wants to stuff cotton in her ears. </p><p>True to her word, Cath makes Neil eat the vomit. She slips on a couple of periwinkle latex gloves and Susan’s knees return to his temples as she scoops the regurgitation into her hands. She holds them cupped above his mouth and slowly separates them, allowing it to dribble down. </p><p>The room stinks so much. It stunk before the fresh vomit, of the feces neither of them will clean off Neil, of raw meat and burnt hair. The sourness of regurgitation has joined the party to create a blend unspeakably foul. </p><p>“I should light some candles,” Susan decides. </p><p>“Huh?” </p><p>“Scented candles. I can hardly breathe in here.” </p><p>Cath rolls her eyes. “You think this is smelly? Try stage three decomp.” </p><p>“I’d rather not, I’m getting candles and…maybe some Lysol.” Susan rises and takes her exit. </p><p>She raids the linen closet for candles with names like Lavender Meadow and Spring Breeze. She bundles them in her arms and returns to the room, arranging them on the dresser betwixt some of Cath’s tools. </p><p>“Can I borrow your lighter?” </p><p>Cath hands it up to her with a faint snort.</p><p>“Thank you.” Susan lights each wick and returns the lighter. </p><p>Cath pockets it and tells Susan to ready the iron as she dances her fingertips over an array of knives. She picks a slimmer blade than the hunting knife she used yesterday. Neil’s broken fingers are swollen, purple and fat like ripe eggplants connected to his equally broken, equally swollen hands. Cath fans them out and begins to cut them off. </p><p>She severs them one by one, beginning with the pinky. Susan watches with one hand on the iron. The blade scrapes loudly as she works it in between the knuckles, shearing through ligament and flesh. His hands are maimed stumps that Susan cauterizes until the skin screams a raging red, glossy with fluid. </p><p>She can barely smell her candles over the cooking skin and her stomach is already turning over before Cath asks for help gathering the fingers. </p><p>Following her into the kitchen, Susan isn’t sure what’s worse, watching Cath stuff Neil’s fingers down the garbage disposal or the roar of the motor when she flicks the switch, the harsh grinding of meat and bone. She gnaws her nails as the nausea swells inside her. Swears she can feel herself going green while Cath is cool as a cucumber, blinking sleepily as she switches the disposal off. </p><p>“I can feel you judging me,” she drawls over the sound of the motor dying down. </p><p>“W-What?” </p><p>“You’re judging me,” Cath repeats, stretching like a house cat, blood stained hands above her head. “Looking at me all doe eyed. Pretending you’re innocent as if you’re not the very reason I’m here.” </p><p>“I’m not,” Susan whispers, breath catching in her throat. “N-Not in the least.” </p><p>“You are. Clasping your hands like some nun in prayer while I’m slicing up his.” Cath lowers her arms. “Thinking you’re better than me, as if you aren’t enjoying this.” </p><p>“I d-don’t,” Susan splutters, shaking her head. “I’m not judging you, I swear, but I don’t…I don’t take any pleasure in this.” </p><p>Susan’s seen more than enough violence in her life. She doesn’t regret her decision to contact Cath. Neil needed to be dealt with one way or the other, and this way was free of charge. It was the best decision she could make but she’s far from reveling it in. It’s hideous business.</p><p>“Sure you do.” Cath rolls her eyes, sauntering across the linoleum. “Quit lying to yourself and just own it, Susan. You’ll sleep easier at night.” </p><p>Susan swallows and watches a lazy smirk twitch upon Cath’s chapped lips. </p><p>“Don’t be shy, baby, it’s okay. Bastard’s been smacking you around for years, enjoying this is just human nature.” </p><p>“Oh, he never, um…Neil never hit me,” Susan murmurs, frowning at the floor as she anxiously twirls a lock of red around her finger. </p><p>Neil was rough with her in bed, never bothered to ask what Susan was or wasn’t comfortable with. Kissed her silent before she could plead not now, not tonight. Sometimes he squeezed her wrist to tug her along if he felt like she was dawdling or pinched her stomach with a firm suggestion to keep it trim. But he never quite struck her. He saved his fists and his belt for Billy alone. </p><p>“What?” Cath demands. </p><p>Susan glances up. The smirk is gone from the blonde woman’s lips, everything lackadaisical vanished from her face and posture. Her eyes are bright and wide now, shockingly alert. It’s an expression Susan recognizes in an instant, the one that always fixed Billy’s face right before he began breaking things. </p><p>Susan flounders for a reply and then quick as lightning, Cath’s got a fistful of her hair. She yanks viciously. Sparks explode through Susan’s vision as her skull is cracked against the countertop. Next thing she knows, she’s on the floor. It happens so fast she doesn’t understand how, wind knocked from her chest. </p><p>Above her, Cath smashes a plate against the counter. She straddles Susan with one sharp shard clutched in her hand, the other encircling her throat. </p><p>“What makes you so fucking special?” she spits. </p><p>Blood weeps from the wound in Susan’s temple, warm as it trickles down her skin. </p><p>“I said, what makes you so fucking special!?” Cath presses the jagged edge of the plate shard under her chin, eyes blazing. </p><p>Susan is acutely aware of the sharp ceramic flush against her fragile skin, the pressure on her throat increasing as Cath’s patience wanes and her grip tightens. Resistance is a passing thought she puts no action into. Cath is smaller than Neil but she’s denser than Susan, quicker than Susan, crueler than Susan. A snarling killer with a weapon in her hand. In any case, Susan hasn’t struggled against anything or anyone in so long, she’s not sure she even remembers how. </p><p>“I’m not,” she croaks. “I’m not, I wasn’t.” </p><p>“No?” she bows, blonde tresses falling loose and brushing over Susan’s cheeks as wet warmth wells under the plate shard. “Neil must’ve thought you were damn special to keep his hands off you.” </p><p>Susan draws a shaky breath and gives a small, defeated shake of the head. </p><p>“He didn’t have to hit me to hurt me,” she pules, despair thick and rancid on her tongue. “He didn’t need his fists to cow me, didn’t need to break my bones to break me down. He didn’t have to…he didn’t have to lift a fucking finger to make me feel as low as an earthworm.” </p><p>Her husband was more than one kind of bully. The shouts were enough to shut her down. Every unkind word and insult well placed, barbs like booby traps expertly sprung. The glacial glares and detached dismantling of her defenses from the inside out. Once Neil found his way inside her head, it was a death of a thousand invisible cuts. He’s physically debilitated and voiceless in the spare bedroom, but everything he brought still crawls around Susan’s mind, possesses every fiber of her being like some wrathful ghost. </p><p>Neil never had to hit her to make sure she knew he could and really, Susan always felt like one day he would. She’d listen to him dish his worst out on Billy however many rooms she was away and felt inevitably the day would come where his fists reached her too. And Susan would deserve it, of course, she knew she would deserve it because she had to be everything Neil convinced her she was. She hadn’t left him and surely that was proof enough she was every sour insult he hurled at her, shouted with enough force to strain his vocal cords, poured like poison right into her ear. Susan was everything less than who she should’ve been and she’ll never, ever stop choking on it. Neil never had to touch her to shove that down her throat. </p><p>Cath stares at her hard as her fingernails bite into Susan’s neck. She delicately draws the shard up, its tip grazing over her cheekbone. </p><p>“Please don’t hurt me,” she murmurs even though she knows it doesn’t matter, it could never matter. Perhaps she even deserves to be hurt. </p><p>“I’m not,” Cath whispers, pushing the edge into Susan’s skin. “Not even close.” </p><p>“So you’re going to kill me?”</p><p>“Do you know why he could make you feel like that?” Cath asks, Susan’s question going unanswered as she uses the shard to sweep her bangs aside. “Low as a worm in the dirt?” </p><p>“Please…” </p><p>“Because you are.” Cath bears her teeth in a Cheshire grin. “He knew it then, I know it now, and you know it too.” </p><p>A knot forms in Susan’s stomach. She feels the bloody trickles going tacky on her temple, the dull pain pounding underneath. </p><p>“I can see right through your Bambi eyes. I know what you are. I bet your daughter does too.” </p><p>She’s going to kill her. Susan stares up at the beautiful ocean gaze sawing into hers and she knows, oh, she knows. When Max and Billy come back from vacation, they’ll find two bodies in this house. They’ll call the police but no one will ever solve the crime. Susan holds Cath’s stare and she knows this as well as she knows all the wretched things spoken above her to be true. </p><p>“Sweet, hapless Susan.” Cath traces her lips with the tip of the shard, nearly but-not-quite nicking the delicate flesh. “You really think I’d hurt you?” </p><p>Susan’s lips soundlessly part. </p><p>“I don’t want to hurt you, winsome, woeful worm of mine. I only want to make you squirm.” </p><p>Cath tosses the shard behind her head. It lands with a clatter. Her opposite hand relaxes the grip on Susan’s throat as she shifts back. Cath pushes her skirt up, the light, summery fabric hiked above her hips. She doesn’t break Susan’s gaze as she strokes her through her underwear, fingertips roving over her folds. </p><p>
  <em>Oh. </em>
</p><p>Susan obediently spreads her legs and Cath snakes her hand past the panties, elastic pulling taut to her hips. Cath squeezes her neck and mouths over Susan’s lips as she draws a burdened breath. The pressure against her trachea is firm, unmovable and unforgiving. Fingers strum the seam of her entrance with purposeful teasing, the pad of a thumb presses so hard to her clit it hurts and releases just as abruptly. </p><p>Susan wiggles her hips, begs, “please,” past the pressure of Cath’s death grip even though she’s no longer sure what she’s pleading for. </p><p>Cath snags Susan’s bottom lip between her teeth and slides two fingers inside. Thrusts them in an eager, urgent rhythm. Her thumb returns to Susan’s clit, grinds down so hard tears prick Susan’s eyes. </p><p>All her heat rushes downward. She’s throbbing under Cath’s touch, skin aflame as she struggles for breath the woman just won’t let her take in full. Her teeth release Susan’s lip and she almost feels disappointment when the sting disappears. </p><p>Cath works her clit mercilessly and Susan loses her head in a fog of pleasure and pain. She’s helium light and burning, burning everywhere. Lungs burning for air, flesh burning for more. </p><p>“Please,” she rasps. </p><p>“Squirm.” Cath smirks above her, thumb digging into the dip of her throat. </p><p>Susan squirms. Her hips buck skyward. She writhes and arches beneath the glorious agony of Cath’s touch, tips her head back as much as she can with the vise around her neck. </p><p>“That’s right,” the woman praises above her, voice like velvet. </p><p>Her fingers move faster and Susan throbs harder, hotter. Cath rolls her thumb over her clit in just the right way as the pressure against her throat suddenly releases. The inferno between her thighs peaks and Susan lets out a moan as she clenches around Cath’s fingers, stars spinning through her dizzy head. </p><p>Cath slides her hand free and stands up. Eyes glittering, she splays her fingers. She slowly, deliberately licks the slick off each one as Susan watches from below, boneless, catching her breath. </p><p>“Meet me in the workshop when you’re ready.” Cath winks and saunters from the kitchen, footsteps echoing with that feline grace. </p><p>Eventually Susan sits up. She glances down to see red smears stark on the fabric of her soaked through panties, smudged along the inside of her thighs. For a heartbeat she mistakes it for menstruation and then she realizes no, it’s Neil’s blood. </p><p>Cath had Neil’s blood crusted on her hands. Susan’s slick made it wet again. Susan draws herself to a stand even though her legs feel like gelatin. She fetches the broom and dustpan. Sweeps up the broken plate. On the shard Cath held to her neck, there’s another small smudge of red. Susan doesn’t think it’s Neil’s. </p><p>Cath’s cackling sounds from down the hallway. Susan dumps the mess into the trash and leaves to join her. </p><p>Whether she likes to watch or not, she knows she’s meant to. She knows that if she doesn’t want her children to return to two bodies, she must. Cath is stomping up and down on Neil’s face, blood splashing her combat boots. His broken jaw flops about, the crepitus audible under the fury of thick rubber soles. </p><p>“Whoo!” Cath pumps her fist as she smashes her boot one more time, dead center in his face. Something snaps. More cartilage. Maybe a cheekbone. </p><p>When she turns back to Susan, her eyes are wild. “You’re goddamn lucky you found me, you know that, right?” </p><p>Bizarrely enough, it sounds exactly like the kind of thing Neil would say to her. Susan suppresses a shiver and bows her head. </p><p>“I am.” </p><p>“What would you do, if you didn’t find me, huh?” Cath perches on the edge of the bed that used to be Billy’s and pats the spot next to her. “You don’t have the dough to pay for a hit.” </p><p>Susan steps around Neil on the floor, the tang of raw meat sharp in the air. “I don’t know.” </p><p>“Guess you’d have to kill him yourself then.” Cath digs a cigarette out of her purse and flips her lighter open, bringing it to the flame. “How would you do it?” </p><p>“I don’t know,” Susan says quietly, turning away from the smoke. </p><p>Cath grabs her by the chin and turns her face right back, forcing Susan to meet her gaze. </p><p>“No. You must’ve thought about it, so tell me.” </p><p>“Well…I have this dream sometimes, where I get the axe from the garage.” Susan tries not to appear as uncomfortable as she feels as she kneads at her upper arm. “Usually I wake up after I, um…cut his head off.” </p><p>“Ah, decapitation. Fancy yourself this century’s Judith of Israel?” </p><p>Susan flutters in surprise. </p><p>“Yeah, I know you, Sunday School.” Cath rolls her eyes. “Always do some digging before I take on new clients.” </p><p>Susan doesn’t ask what else she knows. She only nods and exhales, shifts her eyes to Neil on the floor. She watches the blood flow from his broken nose. Pockets of air in the sticky crimson, tiny bubbles. Shiny tiny bubbles. </p><p>“Dreams are just dreams. I could never do anything like that.”</p><p>“Right, that’s why I had to fly out to Bumfuck Nowhere, Indi-fucking-ana to do your dirty work for you.” </p><p>Susan shies away from the venom in her voice. </p><p>“Got that look on your face again,” Cath declares icily. “Like you’re thinking you’re better than me.” </p><p>“I don’t.” The cut on her neck gives a pointed sting and Susan imagines Cath crushing her lit cigarette out against her forearm. “Actually, you’re better than me. That’s why I need you. I’m not strong enough to do this by myself and you’re right, I couldn’t afford another professional.” </p><p>Susan swallows and hesitantly places her hand on Cath’s thigh. Defaulting to ego-stroking does not always yield success. But Susan thinks it’s safer to try. It often softens the blow, at least. </p><p>“Is that axe still in your garage?” </p><p>Susan’s fingertips brush dried smears over her temple as she tucks her hair back. “Yes.” </p><p>“Go get it.” </p><p>“What do you need it for?” </p><p>“You know you’ll find out soon enough.” </p><p>Susan contemplates the necessity of such a thing, eyes roaming over Cath’s arsenal of specialized pliers and knives and hammers. She doesn’t ask a second time. She rises to her feet and steps around Neil. </p><p>She purposely keeps her mind blank as she does as she’s told, fetching the axe from the garage. She at least has the foresight to put it in a cardboard box first. If any neighbors happen to be looking in her direction, they won’t see a woman carrying an axe into the house. They’ll see a woman carrying a cardboard box.</p><p>“Cut his arms off,” Cath instructs. </p><p>Susan balks. “But they’re already broken.” </p><p>“No shit. I did half the breaking, didn’t I?” Cath exhales a stream of smoke in Susan’s direction and bends down, casually crushing it out against Neil’s belly. A quiver ripples through his frame. “I just don’t particularly care to see them attached to him anymore.” </p><p>Susan purses her lips, can’t tell if Cath is kidding or not. </p><p>“What’re you waiting for? The axe is literally your dream weapon. Go wild.” </p><p>She isn’t kidding. More soft, wounded noises rumble in Neil’s throat. He can still hear them, after all. </p><p>“I’ll cover the iron this time.” </p><p>Susan adjusts her grip on the handle of the axe. Her palms never sweat in her dreams. She brings it back and swings down as hard as she can. In her dreams, the blade drives through Neil’s flesh like butter. In reality it gets solidly embedded in the bone and muscle right below his shoulder. Susan has to work to free it. </p><p>Neil’s head thrashes. He makes more noises but the noises are so tired they’re tedious. </p><p>Blood fountains as Susan wrenches the axe free. Sinews thick as egg noodles flip back from the exposed bone. </p><p>Susan swings again, aiming at her first slice. She feels it go deeper. Some of the splatter gets on her face, hot on contact and in seconds, cooling to a warm like soup set to simmer. </p><p>“Almost,” Cath says from somewhere. </p><p>Susan’s panting as she frees the blade for a third time. Her breaths come in quick puffs but she isn’t tired, isn’t tired at all. Adrenaline sings through her veins. She swings again, slapped with more splatter as Neil’s arm comes apart with a crack and wet kind of ripping sound. </p><p>There is a layer of yellow in the tiers of meat. Nubbly, dewy tissue. Susan thinks it may be fat. It squelches as it surrenders the axe and then Cath dives in, bringing down the iron. It sizzles like steak in the skillet and there’s a resurgence of the sickly sweet burnt meat aroma that never fully dissipated. </p><p>Neil’s chest heaves. He’s sucking and sucking for air. His dismembered arm lies slack on the tarp, the end of it a mess of ragged meat and chips of bone. </p><p>“This is what the coolers are for,” Susan realizes. Maybe she’d always known, perhaps she simply didn’t want to admit she knew. </p><p>“Indeed they are.” Cath sets the iron aside and stands, hand sliding along Susan’s jaw as she kisses her. </p><p>Susan has an axe in her hand and blood on her face and Cath wants— well, maybe tasting the blood is what she wants. Susan tastes it too as Cath’s tongue darts between her teeth, swirls over her own. It’s coppery and sharp, lingers in the back of her throat. </p><p>“One more arm,” Cath urges against her lips. “You’re halfway there.” </p><p>Susan squeezes her eyes shut tight and kisses back heatedly. </p><hr/><p>“Do you suppose I can skip this week’s aerobics tape?” </p><p>Cath lifts her chin from her hand and squints at Susan suspiciously. </p><p>“Well, all of this, um, hammer swinging and axe swinging. It’s very physical, I’d think on par with Jazzercise…” </p><p>“Wow. As peculiar as you are pathetic,” Cath drawls, dropping her hand back into her chin. “What a combo, color me impressed.” </p><p>Susan sips her mint tea and decides she’ll pop in this week’s tape anyway. She thinks sticking to her routine as best she can might help her feel normal. She’d like to feel normal. And it’ll be nice to be able to do it without Neil making fun of her leotard, snapping at her to turn the volume down although she always set only just loud enough to hear, or painfully pinching her ass and scoffing that it was fat as ever, that she was lucky he’d tolerate such a flabby caboose because most men wouldn’t. </p><p>Yes. She thinks it will be rather nice to do her Jazzercise and retain some normalcy, and do so without Neil’s barbwire presence at her back. She thinks it will be nice indeed. </p><p>“Are you sure you don’t want any tea?” </p><p>“Yeah,” Cath mutters. “I’m more of a coffee person.” </p><p>“I could make you coffee.” </p><p>Cath shakes her head. “One of us should sleep.” </p><hr/><p>Susan participates more and more over the next couple days. Cath snuffs her cigarettes into his skin and Susan sears the iron into his skin overtop the smaller circular burns they make at her behest. Cath enjoys grinding the heel of her boot right down on the ruination of his crotch. She grinds and grinds, cackling like a witch stirring her cauldron. Susan doesn’t do that, but at some point she takes the sledgehammer to his pelvis. </p><p>Neil is scarcely recognizable. Contusions and burns ravage his torso. His broken legs are twisted like the pipe cleaner crafts she used to make with Max before Max grew out of such things, swollen beyond swollen and blotched with deep bruising. </p><p>“Could they even identify him like this?” </p><p>“Come again?” </p><p>Susan swallows and gives Cath a dubious look. </p><p>“Theoretically,  if Neil was found somewhere like this, could anyone identify him?” </p><p>They took out his teeth, so surely that renders dental records unobtainable. His fingers went down the garbage disposal even before Susan chopped off his arms. How could fingerprints be of use when he doesn’t have any left? </p><p>“Oh, he could be more unrecognizable than this.” Cath tugs Neil’s ear and lops it off simply to prove a point. </p><p>Susan supposes it’s not quite an answer, at least not to the question she’d asked. It could be an answer to the question she didn’t ask. </p><hr/><p>“I’m breaking my own rule again,” Cath sighs, leaning back on the couch and blowing smoke through her nose. “What’s Billy like?” </p><p>Susan blinks rapidly, caught off guard.</p><p>“He’s, um, really bright. Very observant, intelligent, although you might only notice when he isn’t being too stubborn to bother. He’s that too sometimes.” </p><p>The way Cath smiles is so gentle it’s almost jarring against the flecks of blood painting the plane of her face. </p><p>“Protective,” Susan goes on, shiny, puckered tissue in her mind’s eye, wrapped all around his torso like insidious spider legs and centered bullseye in his chest. “Unbelievably, blessedly protective.” </p><p>“He get along with Max?” </p><p>Susan doesn’t like hearing her daughter’s name in a murderer’s mouth. It crawls beneath her skin. </p><p>“Better now,” she answers anyway. “Much better now.” </p><p>“Hmm.” Cath takes another drag. Smoke plumes from her nostrils and Susan thinks of fire breathing dragons. “I think I’d be better at the mom gig now. Older, wiser, not attached to any asshole man.” </p><p>Susan’s fingers itch toward the adhesive bandage she’d plastered over the gash Cath left in her temple and a chill rakes her spine. </p><p>“Got more money now too. I make bank, Sue. Say what you will about my occupation, I never go to bed hungry.” Cath flicks her cigarette into the ashtray. “Maybe I should adopt. Think I’d prefer an older kid to a baby.” </p><p>Susan feels many things she thinks it would be unwise to convey, so she does not. She nods along and wrings her hands. Evidently she does not do a good enough job. </p><p>“There you go, judging me again,” Cath scoffs. “Like you’re some prize-winner parent. Fucking hypocrite.” </p><p>“I’m not, I’m not judging you at all!” </p><p>“Hypocrite and a liar.” </p><p>Susan tenses as Cath leans across the cushions. The other woman’s hand snakes beneath her blouse. She pinches Susan’s nipple between two fingers and twists until she cries out. Cuts the cry short and crushes it out beneath lips that taste like smoke and blood. </p><p>“Goddamn,” she murmurs into Susan’s mouth. “You’re goddamn beautiful garbage.” </p><p>Susan kisses her back. </p><hr/><p>“That’s the thing they never tell you. You don’t have to be the bigger monster or even the scarier monster. You just have to be the hungrier one. How hungry are you, Susan?” </p><p>“I don’t know what you mean by that, I don’t understand at all.” </p><p>“Oh, but I think you do.” Cath’s breasts squish between Susan’s shoulder blades as she presses ever closer. Her fingers dance down Susan’s arm, steady hand sliding overtop her own shaky one and closing it around the saw. “And I think you’re ravenous.” </p><p>Susan’s not. Cath’s wrong. </p><p>She isn’t ravenous. She isn’t even enough, she isn’t anything at all. She isn’t, she’s not. But by the end— by the end of the night—</p><p>Well, by the end of the night most of Neil’s legs are packed into coolers. His thighs end in blistery beet red stumps. Susan doesn’t think she’ll ever rid her nose of the stench of scorched flesh. </p><p>Cath’s laugh tickles over the shell of her ear. Grinning lips gently press to the nape of her neck. </p><hr/><p>“My children will be back tomorrow.” </p><p>“So it’s time to wrap it up then.” Cath bobs her head. </p><p>Susan stares very hard at the floor. She swallows and flexes her fingers. </p><p>“You’ll give him a heart attack.” </p><p>“That’s usually how I do things.” </p><p>“And it will be painless?” </p><p>“Comparatively.” </p><p>“You know, some of those assisted living arrangements are rather sketchy. The smaller ones run out of people’s homes especially.” </p><p>“Come again?” Cath tilts her head. </p><p>“I was thinking perhaps we send Neil somewhere. One of those homes for the elderly and disabled. I think it’s possible while the kids were at Cedar Point, my husband and I went on a vacation of our own. I think it’s rather possible his rented four-wheeler crashed and caught fire.” </p><p>“Is it now?” Cath raises a brow. </p><p>“I think so,” Susan decides, quiet and dull as she lifts one of the sledgehammers. </p><p>“Even if we put him in the seediest roach infested place we could find, that would add up to quite the bill.” </p><p>“It is my understanding that your line of work is rather lucrative.” </p><p>“And why would I do that for you?” Cath asks but even now she’s smirking, teasing twinkle in her eyes. </p><p>“Not for me. For him,” Susan says, lightly nudging the raw stump of Neil’s upper arm with the head of the hammer. He twitches. He cannot do any more than twitch. “For this man to continue living his life.” </p><p>“Hear that, Neil?” Cath leans down and slides her hand down the underside of his crooked, swollen jaw. Pokes her thumb into his mouth and presses hard on the tender toothless gum. “We’re gonna spare you.” </p><p>Susan lets go of the hammer. She doesn’t know why she picked it up to begin with. </p><p>“May you live a long life and may you never know peace again.” Cath jerks her hand out of his mouth. His jaw creaks with crepitus.  </p><p>She doesn’t walk around him. She steps on him to get to Susan, stamping down on his stomach with a giddy huff. Neil makes a sound too and Susan is so utterly exhausted of his noises, quiet though they are. </p><p>“It’ll cost me a pretty penny but I like it. I like the way you think.” </p><p>Susan doesn’t go slack as she is kissed, although it is her first instinct. There are hornets buzzing in her head but that heat is back. It burns so hot it’s nearly excruciating. Cath hooks two fingers around her underwear, pushes it aside. </p><p>She shoves her back onto the bed and Susan tries not to think about— </p><hr/><p>Susan helps Cath clean up, scrubbing the outsides of the coolers and washing blood from her weapons. She helps her load the van. The coolers are heavier than they were when they didn’t have Neil’s parts in them, wrapped in wax paper like cuts from the butcher. The duffles and totes weigh about the same. </p><p>“I won’t see you again, will I?” </p><p>“Probably not. I don’t take repeat customers. Or in this case, repeat freeloaders.”</p><p>Cath’s lips brush over the healing scabs on Susan’s temple before she struts down the walkway and gets in the driver’s seat. They couldn’t cut it closer. The gray van drives away just as the Camaro pulls up. Susan waves from the porch. </p><p>Max gets out of the car first, red hair flying behind her as she bounds up to Susan. Billy follows after, a look of uncertainty on his face. </p><p>“Who was that?” he asks. </p><p>“Old friend from high school. She stopped for a visit on her way to see some relatives.” </p><p>“You had friends in high school?” Max’s face screws up in disbelief. </p><p>“…much appreciated, Maxine.” </p><p>Billy lightly slugs her shoulder but that smirk tugging at his lips tells Susan he thinks it’s funny too. </p><p>“Why don’t you two come in for a minute?” Susan suggests. “Have some water, take a breather before you unpack.” </p><p>“I wasn’t going to unpack,” Max says. “I was going to go back to Billy’s, we just wanted to see you first.” </p><p>Before Susan can reply, Billy notices her wound. </p><p>“What’s that?” he demands, eyes narrowing. </p><p>“It’s nothing.” Susan messes with her hair, sweeps her bangs in a belated attempt to conceal the sight. “I took a little tumble in the kitchen, knocked into the countertop.” </p><p>“Bullshit,” Billy snarls. “I’ll kill him!” </p><p>And he storms past Susan, charging toward the house. </p><p>“B-Billy, wait! It really wasn’t Neil!” </p><p>This part is indeed a truth but he doesn’t turn around and Susan hurries after him, and then Max pelts after her. They more or less all fly over the threshold at the same time. Susan tugs on Billy’s arm to deter him. Max’s hand immediately goes to her nose. </p><p>“Oh my god, what the hell is that horrible smell?” </p><p>Susan looks to her in confusion. “It…it smells all the way out here?” </p><p>She’d thought the odor was confined in the room. But both Max and Billy nod at her. </p><p>“Forget to take the garbage out?” Billy asks. “That why he hit you?” </p><p>“He didn’t,” Susan repeats. “He couldn’t now, it’s um, it’s not the garbage that smells. I’m sorry you two, if I’d known it was spreading through the whole house, I would’ve lit more candles. I guess I’m just too acclimated to realize, I’ve gone nose blind to it.” </p><p>“To what?” Max asks, frowning as worry swims in her eyes. “What is that,  Mom?” </p><p>“It’s, um, well. It’s Neil,” she answers. </p><p>Billy and Max exchange looks so fast Susan almost doesn’t catch it. </p><p>She knows neither of her children are going to swallow the story but it’s the only story she has and so, it’s what she tells them. </p><p>“Neil and I went on vacation too. We rented a cabin. He crashed the four-wheeler and it um, exploded. He was gravely injured, you see…it was um, it was so bad…” </p><p>No. They aren’t buying it at all. They’re both gawking at Susan as if she’s a raving lunatic.</p><p>“It’s a miracle he survived at all, really. He’s lost his limbs, his eyes, his teeth…” </p><p>Max’s jaw just about hits the floor and Billy’s eyes are so wide she can see the whites all around. </p><p>“To add insult to injury,” Susan winces at the poorly placed, unintended pun. “Neil quit his job before we went on vacation. No medical insurance anymore, so I simply couldn’t take him to the hospital. The bills would be enormous, I just had to do what I could by myself and um, well…luckily my friend Cath knows a lot about anatomy. So she helped me patch him up as best I could.” </p><p>“Mom.” Max reaches up and firmly grips her shoulders. “Are you on drugs?” </p><p>“You can see him for yourself if you want,” Susan breathes warily, speaking to the both of them. “He’s in the spare bedroom. My friend and I laid towels down and she helped me get him up there.” </p><p>Neil was significantly lighter than the day they’d dragged him, virtually half-starved and missing all four limbs. </p><p>Billy ducks down the hall first. Max hesitates, staring hard at Susan, hands still on her shoulders. </p><p>“As much as I don’t want you to see anything that may be upsetting, perhaps you should go with him.” </p><p>Because at the end of the day, Neil was still Billy’s father. He shouldn’t have to see him in such a state alone. Max’s expression of ardent disbelief morphs into something else. She releases her mother’s shoulders and jogs to catch up with her brother. </p><p>Susan doesn’t follow them. But she hears it when they see. Neither of them scream but. </p><p>But they are not silent. </p><p>Susan’s already covering her mouth when they come charging back. </p><p>“What did you do?” Billy’s snapping at her and he sounds like Neil but he looks like Cath and Susan isn’t actually sure which part has her stepping backward and shying away. </p><p>Max not so subtly steps between them but she doesn’t look any happier. </p><p>“You’re angry with me?” </p><p>“You— You planned something,” Max stutters out, hard look in her eye. “Cedar Point was your idea. You sent us away.” </p><p>“I wanted you to have a good vacation,” Susan insists and this is not the whole truth of course, but it is one truth. One of many. </p><p>“What the fuck happened?” Billy’s nostrils flare but he’s made an effort to lower the volume and for that, Susan is grateful. </p><p>“I told you what happened.” </p><p>“What <em>really</em> happened?” Max plants her hands on her hips. </p><p>“I told you—“ </p><p>“Bullshit,” Billy cuts her off. </p><p>“Stop lying!” Max snaps.</p><p>“Fine!” Susan throws her hands up. “You want to know what really happened? Tell me the truth about Starcourt first.” </p><p>At this, they both snap ramrod straight. </p><p>“If you want me to confess, you’ll have to do the same,” Susan says tartly, crossing her arms. “Your lie is the older one.” </p><p>Max glances to Billy, who glances to the floor. </p><p>“I know it wasn’t shrapnel, your wounds were too symmetrical.” </p><p>She’d bought it at first, simply didn’t think to question it, distraught and distracted with more urgent concerns. But Billy’d said some very odd things while doped up and Max got agitated and snippy whenever she tried to press for more details and the newspaper hardly had any details at all. Susan doesn’t have the faintest clue what actually happened or why they would hide it from her, but she knew enough to know that they were, in fact, hiding it from her. </p><p>“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” Max says eventually. </p><p>Billy looks a bit like he might be ill, doesn’t add anything even when Susan glances his way.</p><p>“Well…you probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you what actually happened with Neil. But I hope you know what you saw, it— it wasn’t what I’d anticipated.” </p><p>“What’s going to happen to him now?” Billy asks, solemn as he raises his head. </p><p>“My friend made arrangements for a friend of hers to pick Neil up sometime tomorrow afternoon in between noon and three. He’ll be taken to an assisted living facility in Detroit.” Susan sighs out, rubs her temples out of habit and doesn’t wince even though her scabby knot twinges in protest. “I know it’s far away but such places tend to be expensive and this one was affordable…and less likely to question somewhat unusual paperwork.” </p><p>Both her kids are staring at her, the one she bore and the one she didn’t. Susan is too tired to wonder what they see. Too jaded to hope it isn’t what— </p><p>“I’m glad it’s far away,” Max spits with a sudden fury. “I hate him. If I never, ever saw Neil again, it’d be too soon.” </p><p>“None of us have any reason to visit him,” Billy agrees, giving a jerk of the head as his eyes go steely. “I was ready to kill him less than an hour ago.” </p><p>Susan goes boneless with relief. She exhales a long breath and feels ten pounds lighter. </p><p>“We turned onto the street just as your friend was getting in the van,” Billy says suddenly, brow creasing in consideration. “Caught a glimpse of her. Even with the distance, she looked kind of familiar…” </p><p>Susan swallows and hopes her next lie will be more convincing. </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>this is NOT a followup chapter. this is the exact same story but with the bloody parts cut out. my friend was interested in reading but she can't do gore like i can, so i edited this relatively gore free version for her. and decided to post it for other readers who maybe like the idea but aren't into explicit gore.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>took a min to edit and post this bc i was distracted by other things namely how much caos fucking SUCKED. like wtaf was that bullshit. s3 was poor but s4 was just utter fucking trash. w h y?</p><p>i can hardly even enjoy lilith killing lucifer and prudence killing faustus bc the rest of the season was so fucking awful. i did not have high expectations after s3 but this was just literally the worst. as the last season s4 should've at least aimed to go out with a bang but instead--</p><p>nope, nope, gotta stop myself. this is not the time or the place. to reiterate, this chapter is NOT a followup. it is a censored version of the same story with *most* of the gore edited out. did not entirely remove neil being force-fed his own liquified junk, but the description of it has been heavily minimized.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Susan runs Max to Billy’s apartment. Max gives her a brief hug around the waist before trotting off to the guest room that’s more or less become her own second bedroom, backpack in hand. Billy’s got his hair up today, shirtless, scars on full display. While Susan’s glad he’s become comfortable enough to do so, she’s always a little unnerved at the one like a collapsed starburst, puckered one dead in the center of his chest. That one took the longest to heal. </p><p>He raises a brow at the envelope of money. </p><p>“What? We talked about Cedar Point.” </p><p>“Neil will flip his shit when he finds out this is gone.” </p><p>“He won’t. It’s from my personal stash.”</p><p>“The one you’re supposed to be saving up to leave him with.” </p><p>Susan pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs out. “I’m not here to argue with you, Billy. Just take the money so Max can have a decent vacation for once.” </p><p>“I told you I’d pay for it.” His stare is hard, stubborn. </p><p>“I’ve been with Neil this long, I can last the extra month or so this will set me back. Please take it. You ought to be saving up too, this dirty apartment is not meant to be a long-term arrangement.” </p><p>“Hey,” he protests. “My apartment is not dirty.” </p><p>“You haven’t vacuumed in weeks.” Susan chuckles and shakes her head, gesturing to the floor. There are little crumbs and lint fuzzes scattered across the carpet. It isn’t filthy per se, but certainly neglected by Susan’s standards. </p><p>“Have to,” Billy insists, crossing his arms. “It’s a shitty vacuum, that’s all.” </p><p>“Well, did you remember to empty the canister?” </p><p>There is a pause and then a one-shouldered shrug. </p><p>“You wouldn’t mind if I vacuumed, would you?” Susan asks, smiling sheepishly. </p><p>Billy rolls his eyes. </p><p>“It’ll only take a minute,” Susan insist. “I’ll just give it a quick once over and be out of your hair. I couldn’t stay even if I wanted to, I’ve got an appointment to make.”</p><p>“Sure.” Billy gestures to the closet door in the living room. “Vacuum’s in there, go wild.” </p><p>Susan winds her way around the beaten secondhand furniture. Max slips in from the short hallway, props her elbows on the back of the couch. </p><p>“What appointment?” she asks. </p><p>Susan licks her lips as she extracts the vacuum from the mess of the closet. Sure enough, the canister is full of dust bunnies. She smiles fondly and keeps it to herself. </p><p>“With an exterminator. We’ve had a vermin problem for a long time now and I’m finally ready to stop dragging my feet.” </p><hr/><p>She answers the door topless. Dressed in nothing but blue jeans and sunglasses, grabs Susan’s wrist and pulls her inside the hotel room. Susan stammers out a greeting, purposely averting her eyes to the outdated wallpaper. </p><p>“Jesus, it’s like you’ve never seen a pair of tits before.” </p><p>Susan’s mouth goes dry. </p><p>“They’re not gonna bite you,” she huffs, amused as she walks around Susan in a slow circle, sizing her up. “Though I might.” </p><p>“W-What?” </p><p>“Strip.” </p><p>Susan gapes, at a loss. </p><p>The woman stops walking. She lifts her sunglasses and peers at Susan with hard eyes. Her nostrils flare as she shakes her head to herself, hand coming up in an indecisive wiggle. </p><p>“You know what, Hargrove? This whole situation, I don’t know, it's giving me the heebie-jeebies.” </p><p>“W-What?” Susan repeats, nervously rubbing at her arm. “Why?” </p><p>“I haven’t seen hide nor hair of my ex-husband in over a decade. Then out of the blue, his second wife decides to take him out. And finds me, of all people, to do just that. That’s a pretty big coincidence, wouldn’t you say so?”</p><p>“Uhm, yes, I suppose so.” </p><p>“Seems a little fishy at first glance, don’t you think?” </p><p>“It…when you put it that way, I can understand how.” </p><p>“Good. So now that we’re on the same page, you’re going to strip naked for me. Right here, right now, so we can prove you’re not wearing a wire.” </p><p>Susan hesitates, pulse quickening. </p><p>“Now,” she repeats, snapping her fingers. “This ain’t the circus, Mrs. Hargrove, I don’t like funny business.” </p><p>“Okay.” Susan exhales and slips off her flats. She unbuttons her shirt with shaky fingers and wiggles her capris down her hips. </p><p>The woman starts circling her again, blonde waves bouncing against her shoulders. “Bra and undies too, don’t be shy.” </p><p>Susan feels herself flush hot with embarrassment but she does as she’s told. Her underwear pools around her bare feet. She stretches her arms forward and the bra slides off. </p><p>“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” </p><p>Susan swallows and shakes her head. </p><p>“Now we can trust each other. Well, almost. I’ve got a few rules you need to follow.” </p><p>“Okay,” Susan agrees carefully. </p><p>“First rule, I get to do this the way I want to do this. I have a personal score to settle with Neil, so I’m going to take my time. I’m going to go nice and slow, and I’m going to enjoy it. You will not object. I’m doing this for you for free because I was where you are and I know what it’s like. If you don’t appreciate my methods, you will keep this in mind, hold your tongue, and thank me anyway.” </p><p>Susan nods in assent. </p><p>“Second rule, we don’t talk about my kid. Like I said, I have personal—“ </p><p>“With all due respect,” Susan interrupts, lifting her head. “I don’t think of Billy as yours at all. I consider him mine.” </p><p>And she has, for some time now. </p><p>This gives the blonde pause. Something different briefly flickers over her face. Before Susan can identify it, her impassive mask resumes. </p><p>“Fine. Third rule, you will assist me when I ask for it. I’m perfectly capable of handling this myself, but since you won’t be compensating me monetarily, your participation is a matter of personal insurance.” </p><p>Susan gulps. “You th-think I’d turn on you?” </p><p>“I think your assistance will ensure that you don’t.” Unblinking blue eyes bore into Susan’s soul. </p><p>She feels sick to her stomach but bows her head in resignation anyway. It’s too late to turn back now. </p><p>“I’ll be staying with you for up to a week.” </p><p>Susan’s eyes widen and so does the killer’s grin. </p><p>“I told you already, I want to take my time with this. It’s possible we may be seen together or that I will be seen at your residence. If anyone asks about me, my name is Cath Jennings. I’m an old friend from high school. We were in the scrapbooking club together and I stopped by for a visit on my way to see relatives who live upstate.” </p><p>Susan blinks slowly as she absorbs the information. </p><p>“You may call me Cath if it helps you memorize this story. You may call me whatever you wish, provided I don't find it insulting.” </p><p>“Cath is fine with me…” </p><p>“Do you agree to abide by the rules I’ve explained to you?” </p><p>“I do.” </p><p>“Prove it.” </p><p>“How—“ </p><p>“On your knees.” </p><p>Susan startles. The realization that she doesn’t understand the depth of what she’s gotten herself into at all hits her with the velocity of a car crash. She swallows and steadily lowers herself to her knees, trying not to shiver as chills rake her spine and the air brushes over her bare flesh.  </p><p>“Good, that’s what I like to see.” The woman she’ll now think of as Cath approaches and stretches her leg so that her bare foot hovers inches away from Susan’s face, toenails polished sapphire blue. </p><p>“I ask that you demonstrate your loyalty and cooperation with a kiss.” </p><p>Susan raises her eyes as her mouth falls in bewilderment. </p><p>“One simple kiss.” </p><p>She’s serious. She's actually serious.</p><p>"No one else will kill for you for free, sweetheart. If I tell you to put on a tutu and do backflips, I guarantee it's in your best interests to comply." </p><p>It’s certainly far too late to turn back now. Susan curls her fingers around Cath’s ankle and gentle presses her lips to the top of her foot. </p><p>“Now that wasn't so hard." She smirks, insolent and infernal. "We’re going to have a lot of fun together, you and I.” </p><hr/><p>Cath arrives in a windowless gray van while Neil is at work. She parks on the curb. Susan helps her unload upon request and much unloading there is to do. The back of the van is stuffed with totes, duffle bags, suitcases, and half a dozen coolers. Some of the luggage is rather heavy and Susan wonders what’s inside. </p><p>They put everything in Billy’s old room turned spare bedroom. He’s been moved out for almost a year now and took mostly everything with him. The mattress remains. Susan wanted him to have a new one in his new apartment, something less worn and more comfortable. </p><p>Convincing Neil to help pay for Billy’s new bed was a delicate, perilous affair accomplished only with ego stroking and Susan introducing the concept in a way that emphasized the benefit to the family rather than to Billy. Moving a heavy mattress down a narrow hallway was a cumbersome affair, didn’t Neil remember huffing and puffing when they’d moved it in. Buying Billy a new mattress didn’t mean springing for some memory foam king size, of course not, it meant getting him something smaller, lighter, easier to maneuver into a quaint apartment without having to hire help. And wouldn’t it be nice to have a guest room on Cherry Lane.</p><p>As if the Hargrove household ever had guests. Susan stacks suitcases and coolers and absently notes that the nonexistent Cath Jennings from the scrapbooking club she was never in is the first guest the room has actually seen since being converted. Only it’s at this point Cath gives herself a new name. </p><p>“Think of me as Santa Claus. You’re my little helper elf. This is our workshop.” She smirks and gestures around the room. “In my luggage are our toymaker tools.” </p><p>Susan finds it somewhat unnerving how playful she is about this. Susan herself is a ball of anxiety, fingernails eaten down to the quick and heart kicking in her chest like a spooked hare. Of course she doesn’t say as much. Of course she smiles a dulcet smile and objects to nothing. </p><p>“You have a clothes iron, don’t you?” </p><p>“Um, yes.” </p><p>“That’ll work.” Cath inclines her head. “Go get it.” </p><p>Susan fetches the iron from the linen closet. </p><p>“So the plug is here, which means we’ll put the tarp there.” Cath seems like she’s talking to herself more than Susan as she points, her index finger moving in a lazy circle. “That should reach.” </p><p>She unzips one of her duffles and extracts what appears to be a brand new tarp, neatly folded and clean as a whistle. She unfolds it quickly and Susan helps her spread it across the floor. Susan then uncoils the iron cord and plugs it in. </p><p>“What’re you doing?” Cath narrows her eyes. </p><p>“I’m going to iron out the wrinkles.” Susan nods to the tarp. “Isn’t that why you wanted the iron?” </p><p>Cath throws her head back and laughs this savage hyena laugh. The sound of it puts feelings in Susan’s stomach she isn’t sure what to do with. </p><hr/><p>Neil walks through the front door and bends to take his shoes off. </p><p>“Did you see that van, Susan?” he calls into the living room where she stands as still as a statue even though her heart races with anxiety. </p><p>Cath peels herself off the wall behind him, syringe in hand. </p><p>Neil lifts his head. “Do you know who it—“ </p><p>She moves like a viper. Her elbow cuts through the air and the needle disappears into Neil’s jugular. His mouth falls as she pushes the plunger in and retracts just as quickly. Cath steps back and Neil collapses to the floor. </p><p>It happens so fast Susan scarcely believes it. Neil lies twitching, gazing up into nothing Susan can see. </p><p>“C’mon,” Cath beckons, wiggling her hand. “Grab a leg, help me drag him.” </p><p>“B-But his eyes are still open.” </p><p>“That’s normal with special K, don’t worry about it. Twitchy or not, he’s totally harmless.” </p><p>The only Special K Susan knows is the cereal. She doesn’t say that. She doesn’t do anything. </p><p>“Susan.” Cath snaps her fingers. “You’re my elf, remember? Workshop time.” </p><p>Susan makes her way over and obediently grabs a leg. Neil is slack and heavy, heavier than Cath’s luggage. But between the two of them, dragging him down the hall is a manageable task. They get him on the tarp and pause for a breather. His eyes are still open. Susan finds this extremely eerie and disconcerting. </p><p>“Now we strip him and immobilize him.”</p><p>She says it so simply. The way Susan might recite baking instructions. </p><p>“I don’t…like him looking at me.” She chews her painfully short thumbnail. </p><p>“He’s not actually looking at you. He’s out, baby, your nerves are just messing with your head.” </p><p>“I mean, I know, but.” Susan gives herself a jerk. “I’m sorry. I’m being silly, I suppose.” </p><p>She hired an assassin with a grudge she cannot actually afford to pay. What did she expect. </p><p>“Yes, you are.” There’s a smirk tugging at Cath’s lips as she unzips one of her duffles, the pine green one about as long as a golf bag. </p><p>There are not golf clubs inside. There are hammers. Two sledgehammers, one with a wooden handle, another with a synthetic grip. There is a smaller claw hammer and an even smaller different hammer with an odd head shape Susan can’t identify. </p><p>Cath undoes the buckles in a slimmer leather bag that isn’t quite a bag, but a knife roll. Cath doesn’t choose any of the knifes. She chooses a pair of long shears and snips at Neil’s clothes until he’s completely exposed, naked as could be, every unflattering mole uncovered, penis flaccid in a thatch of dark hair. </p><p>“Break his fingers.” </p><p>“What?” </p><p>“I told you, this is the part where we immobilize him. You’re new, so you’ll start with the fingers because they’re nice and easy. Bend them back until they snap, it’s a piece of cake.” </p><p>Susan inhales through her nose. She picks up Neil’s limp arm, the tiny hairs on her own arms standing up as her skin prickles. Part of her feels like this isn’t real. Like Neil is playing possum and plans to pop up any second now. That he’ll rip his arm out of her hands and scream at her until she deafens. That his limp fingers will curl into a fist and today will finally be the day he punches her in the face. </p><p>Susan starts with his pinky. She bends it back until there’s a snap and then even further, touching it to the back of his hand. </p><p>He does not pop up. He cannot make a fist with the way the crooked pinky immediately balloons. Susan somehow feels ill and elated at the same time. His fingers snap like twigs in her hands. She gets so caught up in it, she doesn’t even look Cath’s way until the aroma of cooking meat coasts through the air. </p><p>Neil’s foot is gushing blood. Waves wash over the tarp and then Cath brings down the iron what must be a second time. The bleeding stops and the aroma grows stronger. </p><p>“One achilles down, one to go,” Cath hums, lazy smile on her lips as she blinks to Susan. “He won’t be able to walk anymore but we’re still going to break bones.” </p><p>That’s what the sledgehammers turn out to be for. Cath tells her to aim for the joints. She does some coke before this part, offers Susan a bump that she turns down. Her eyes are the feral eyes of a frothing rabid animal. Her aim is true. She swings her hammer like John Henry battling against the steam drill, shatters Neil’s kneecaps without breaking a sweat. </p><p>Susan does break a sweat but she tries to keep up anyway. Adjusts and readjusts her grip on the handle and puts her entire body behind her swings. Strikes the same spot until something cracks. His ribs go easier than his collarbones. Sweat collects in Susan’s lashes like dewdrops but she swings and she swings because a murderer told her to swing and because of the fear of what will happen if she does not swing, if Neil is left with enough mobility to cause harm. </p><p>She swings until there are ugly cracks and revolting crunches. Her swings are not as precise nor measured as Cath’s. Her feet leave the floor and occasionally she stumbles, misses, hits his belly when she’d meant to hit his pelvis. Nevertheless, she feels the impact of her strikes, of the giving beneath the hammer's heavy head. She’s puffing and panting and may have blisters forming on her palms— Cath wears gloves but hadn’t offered Susan a pair. Susan strives to break bones because she must, because one very frightening person commanded it of her and another very frightening person must be incapacitated. </p><p>Susan swings because it is necessary and takes no perverse satisfaction in her actions. The bit of joy she’d found in breaking his fingers was tempered and fleeting, it’s not— she’s a pacifist under the best of circumstances, of course she is. A gentle soul. </p><p>By the end of it, Susan is dripping perspiration. Cath only wears a slight sheen, seems as if shimmering rather than sweating. Neil’s twisted limbs swell until they’re fat as those blubbery seals lying on the beach Susan misses with all her heart. The bruising is a sight to behold, dark splatters in every shade of purple from wisteria to aubergine. A troubled artist's interpretation of violet violence. </p><p>“Not bad,” Cath declares, looking her up and down. “Better than I would’ve thought, to tell you the truth. You didn’t even barf.” </p><p>Susan rolls the words around in her head and decides this is probably a compliment and that she should probably be polite. </p><p>“Thank you.” </p><p>Cath smirks and rips off her shirt, followed by her bra. Perhaps it’s because she’s overheated. Perhaps she just likes taking her shirt off. Susan could never be so brazen with her breasts on display, already feels herself flush when she glimpses Cath’s. She’d blush to the point of incinerating herself if she walked around like that. </p><p>Cath duct tapes Neil’s mouth shut. “Can’t let him scream, can we?” </p><p>“I suppose not.” </p><p>“Well, that worked up an appetite. What you got in the fridge?” </p><hr/><p>Susan floats through the first twenty-four hours of it. Supposes she might be in some kind of shock. On the first morning Cath makes Neil quit his job so he will not be missed. Susan dials the number and holds the phone to his head while Cath threatens his testicles with the nail gun. He’s too heavily injured to doubt the threat. Complies and quits over the phone, tells his boss he found a better opportunity elsewhere. </p><p>“Oh, honey,” Cath purrs as Susan pulls the phone away. “Aren’t you glad I’m home?” </p><p>“You bitch,” he roars at her, veins bulging in rage even as pain consumes every feature. “This is the thanks I get for raising your goddamn hell spawn—“ </p><p>“No,” Susan decides, backhanding him fiercely of her own volition. It is the only act of violence she will take something positive away from today. “You don’t get to insult Billy anymore.” </p><p>And Neil is too stunned to even toss his head when Cath slaps the tape back on. </p><p>“Is there anyone else who needs to hear from him?” Cath asks. “Anyone who will miss him, or sniff around if he doesn’t show somewhere?” </p><p>Susan pauses to consider these questions in depth. There isn’t. She knows for a fact there isn’t because her own schedule is built around Neil’s schedule, Neil’s presence, and providing what Neil wants when he wants it. She has taking dinner out of the oven down to a science so that its readiness coincides with his arrival as exactly as possible. </p><p>“No.” </p><p>“Are you sure?” </p><p>“Yes.” </p><p>Cath nods her head and slips her gloves back on. “In that case, there’s no reason for him to continue to possess the fine privilege of speech.” </p><p>Cath breaks Neil’s jaw with a swift, gleeful swing of the sledgehammer. He flinches on the tarp and stills just as quickly when the action visibly causes great pain. </p><p>“Break it on the other side.” </p><p>“Hm?” </p><p>“Come on, right at the joint, just like I told you.” Cath extends the handle in Susan’s direction. “Let’s see if we can get his mouth to do that snake thing, wouldn’t that be neat?” </p><p>“Oh, I don’t—“ </p><p>“You do,” she insists. “You want to.” </p><p>Susan swallows and takes the hammer. Something happens. She isn’t quite present for what, even though her body is moving. Something loud, something wet. </p><p>Neil’s jaw resembles that of an unhinged python mouth enough to make Cath happy. She does a little twirl and then kneels down, grabbing the smaller hammer with the strange head. That’s the one she uses to smash his teeth in. After the fact Susan has to get down and help her remove the tooth shards from his gums. Cath has different pliers for different teeth and Susan has some kind of opinion on this. Maybe her opinion is that she’s in over her head. </p><p>“Too bad we can’t smelt these,” Cath hums, holding up one of several gold crowns. </p><p>Susan doesn’t even know what to make of that. Doesn’t want to think about it. Knows for a fact she’s in over her head, but then, she’s been in over her head for years. Really, what difference should it make now. </p><p>Once Neil is sufficiently toothless, Cath cuts out his tongue. The clothes iron won't fit in his mouth but Susan's curling iron does. </p><hr/><p>It’s the way she swaggers over the threshold when she walks into the room. The particular way she tosses her head. The nimble flick of her fingers when she adjusts her sunglasses. The pivot of her hips as Susan beholds her in this very moment, the casually confident contrapposto of her body in the doorframe, no top and tight jeans. </p><p>“You’re staring at me.” </p><p>“S-Sorry.” </p><p>“I got something on my face?” </p><p>It’s right there too, in the way her nose scrunches up, and Susan shakes her head. </p><p>“No, it’s just…you move like him. Well, I suppose he moves like you, rather.” </p><p>“Damn it.” Cath’s gaze goes steely. “You just broke rule number two.” </p><p>“I’m sorry.” Susan ducks her head. </p><p>“You know what happens when you break the rules?” She pushes off the doorframe and struts over, steps quick and dangerous. </p><p>She seizes Susan by the face, fingers forcefully clenching around her chin. Susan stumbles for an apology, thoughts racing. Panicky syllables squeak off her tongue, nothing coherent managed before Cath cackles in her face. </p><p>“Calm your tits, I’m just messing around.” She lets go of Susan’s face, rakes her hand back over her mane of blonde. “Not gonna hurt you. I’m not a violent person.” </p><p>At this, Susan can only gape. </p><p>Cath rolls her eyes. </p><p>“Seriously, I’m not.” She shuffles to the side and plops down on the couch beside Susan. “This is only the third time I’ve ever tortured anybody and the first time I’ve enjoyed it. But third time’s the charm, or so they say.” </p><p>“…you kill people for a living,” Susan mumbles, mystified. </p><p>“Not violently. Shit, Sue, it’s not how it is in the movies. Movies are all guns, guns, and more guns, people’s heads exploding like water balloons.” Cath pops her lips and opens her hands to mime explosions, a gesture made all the more discomforting by the red residue of Neil’s blood staining her palms. “Usually it’s just the tiny poke of a needle. One jab and boom, heart attack. Nothing flashy, nice and quick.” </p><p>“Oh,” Susan says. She has no idea what else to say. “Oh.” </p><p>“Exploding heads aren’t very subtle.” She chuckles and it’s jarring, this playful twinkle in her eye. “If that’s what it was like, I would’ve been caught a long time ago.” </p><p>Susan finds herself disquieted and swallows because she does not trust herself to speak. </p><p>“Oh, don’t look at me like that.” </p><p>“I’m n-not—“ </p><p>“You are,” Cath growls, kicking her feet up on the coffee table. “Half of ‘em are bastards just like Neil, some even worse. People don’t usually make the kind of enemies who want them dead outta nowhere. Besides, I’m not doing anything that wouldn’t happen eventually anyway.” </p><p>Susan stares at the polished toenails resting on her polished table and one of those bloodstained hands comes to rest on her knee. Gives a gentle squeeze. </p><p>“Death is the one and only thing in this big fucked up world everyone has in common. We all die sooner or later. Folks just pay me the big bucks to make it sooner.” </p><p>“How many?” she asks quietly. </p><p>“We both know you don’t actually want the answer to that question.” </p><p>“But isn’t it hard?” </p><p>Thoughtfulness drapes Cath’s features. She hums in her throat and flexes the fingers still resting on Susan’s knee. </p><p>“Not usually, no. Sometimes I worry about getting caught. If anything could get me caught, it’d be this business with Neil. When I got into this line of work, some of the first advice I heard was never to kill anybody I know. Kill somebody you know, that’s how you get caught.” </p><p>Susan chews her lip. </p><p>“But I don’t think we’ll get caught. I think we’re being pretty darn careful, don’t you?” </p><p>“I, um…I honestly don’t know how to quantify that.” </p><p>Cath smirks, lazily draws her hand higher up Susan’s leg, fingertips brushing the inside of her thigh. </p><p>“You will.” </p><p>There are things inside Susan that she does not wish to confront, so she turns the television on instead. She and the nonviolent murderer beside her watch afternoon sitcoms. That hand leaves her knee but returns to it every now and then, squeezes or inches even higher. It’s somewhat surreal to be watching sitcoms while her husband lies on a bloody tarp mere rooms away, unfathomably, utterly harmless with feces smearing the seam of his rear and blisters oozing on his ruined skin. </p><p>But Susan laughs anyway at the wacky antics of people who don’t exist and Cath laughs too, right from the belly. She laughs until she gets the remote away from Susan early in the evening. Presses the mute button on a commercial break. </p><p>“So Billy moves like me, huh?” </p><p>At first Susan doesn’t answer. She gauges the absence of expression on Cath’s face, wonders if this is a trap. If it is a trap, wonders if she’ll face some kind of retaliation. Sitting on the couch and laughing at sitcoms doesn’t make Cath any less threatening. Susan’s seen with her own eyes what she can do and how easily she can do it. </p><p>As if sensing her worries, Cath flaps a hand. </p><p>“I know, I’m breaking my own rule now. But I’m curious.” </p><p>“…he does.” Susan bobs her head. “He certainly does.” </p><p>“Heh.” A gentle kind of smile twitches on her lips. “Sounds about right. Billy was a real momma’s boy back when he was younger. Followed me around like a little puppy dog right up until the day I left.” </p><p>Susan doesn’t know if she actually wants to know more. Cath continues anyway. </p><p>“Surprised me how much he took to me. I’d dropped ‘im a couple times when he was a baby. Didn’t mean to, but he squirmed a lot and with babies, you know— sometimes the puke just shoots outta them when you least expect and you’re just caught off guard, and your hands slip. You had one, you know what I mean.” </p><p>Susan never, ever dropped Max, but she suppresses her abject horror and nods along. </p><p>“He wasn’t hurt, really. Swear that baby had a skull like a bowling ball…plenty of padding too, he was fat as fuck. Well, maybe you know that. Neil ever show you pictures?” </p><p>“No,” Susan answers honestly. “He never did.” </p><p>“Figures. He’s not the sentimental type. But believe me, Billy was a chunker. And I figured he’d hate me, like he’d instinctively remember how I dropped him even when he got bigger.” Cath fiddles with the remote, breathes a sigh. “But nah. Billy took to me early on. And I was good at a lot of the mom stuff. Reading to him, playing with him, swimming classes. Wasn’t perfect, didn’t really know how to deal with the temper tantrums. That’s when Neil took over. Wasn’t so great at making sure he was eating the right stuff, either. Couldn’t cook for shit, still can’t. How about you?” </p><p>“I like to think I can cook.” Susan tents her fingers, un-tents them. Knits them, unknits them. “I mean, I certainly couldn’t be a chef at a fancy restaurant, but I have a lot of recipes under my belt.”</p><p>“I get the feeling you’re being modest.” Cath arches a brow. </p><p>Pride is a sin, isn’t it. </p><p>“Well…I don’t like to boast about my roasts, but there’s never any leftovers.” </p><p>To hell with sin. </p><p>Cath huffs a laugh and playfully bumps against Susan’s shoulder. </p><p>“Of course you can cook. Neil hated me so much, he went and found himself my motherfucking antithesis.” She clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “I mostly stuck to pre-made stuff. Instant noodles, Bisquick, frozen pizzas. This one night I tried to make a meatloaf from scratch…ended up pulling what looked like a giant lump of coal from the oven. Smoke detectors were screaming bloody murder, pan burned so bad we had to throw it out.” </p><p>Susan winces in sympathy, imagining the scene. Truth be told, she can relate. Sure, she’s a good cook now but it’s not as if she was born with a ladle in her hand. </p><p>“That was the first time he hit me.” </p><p>Susan stomach lurches. </p><p>“I didn’t even see it coming. And I should have. I really should have, but I was young and stupid and I wanted to believe in good things.” </p><p>Susan opens her mouth to speak but Cath suddenly jolts. She jumps up from the couch, eyes electrified. </p><p>“Come on,” she says, snatching Susan’s hand. “I was going to save this one for the grand finale but fuck it! I’m getting impatient.” </p><p>Susan is given no further explanation as she’s pulled off the couch. She awkwardly stumbles around the coffee table as Cath hurries her off to what used to be Billy’s room. Susan can’t tell if Neil is already conscious or if he wakes when Cath jerks him by the hair. She holds his head up as she slides one of the coolers behind his neck to keep it propped. </p><p>“Plug the iron in, Susan.” </p><p>Susan swallows and does as she is told. Neil’s rheumy eyes rove to her and she looks away. Cath steps over the tarp and takes her hand again, tugging her so they’re both in Neil’s direct sightline. </p><p>“I want him hard for this, but I’m sure as hell not jerking him off.”</p><p>“What?” Susan’s brow furrows. </p><p>Cath’s lips unfurl in a wicked goblin grin, then she leans in, covering Susan’s. Susan gasps softly against her mouth, thoughts fracturing, scattered as the other woman slides her hands beneath her shirt. Cath doesn’t break the kiss and pushes forward, urging Susan back until she hits the wall, nudging her legs open with a nimble knee.</p><p>Susan realizes she should do something with her hands. She puts her hands on Cath’s waist supposing that’s where Cath probably wants them to be. Cath’s fingers deftly undo her bra strap and Susan’s mind is all static as that knee between her legs becomes more insistent, sliding up between her thighs. </p><p>Susan doesn’t know exactly what’s happening but thinks she understands enough to know what she is meant to do. She grinds herself against Cath’s knee so hard she can feel the seam in the crotch of her jeans digging into her center. Cath jams up and Susan grinds down and slides her mouth open against her hungry tongue. </p><p>Heart surges behind the fabric of her jeans. She’s sweltering fiercely under her panties but cold, cold, cold everywhere else and she knows. She knows Neil is watching, that Neil has no choice but to watch. If he closed his lids, Cath would surely cut them off. </p><p>Susan hired a professional but she suspects the person kissing her is actually someone in pain. It might make her more dangerous than less, Susan thinks. Maybe that’s what she can taste in her mouth, maybe that’s what’s pushing against her overheated cunt and thrumming through those fingers as they squeeze her breasts until they ache. </p><p>It’s aching and friction and fire and wet. Susan knows things even around the static in her head. Her heart flutters with emotion that can’t be pleasure because her stomach’s sticking. Her underwear is soaked as Cath pulls away. The strand of saliva connecting their lips severs when she looks down at Neil on the floor. </p><p>“Half hard is good enough,” Cath decides. </p><p>Susan blinks at it, her husband’s cock half-mast. She’s surprised he even managed that level of arousal given the state he’s in, but she supposes that is besides the point. The point is the hunting knife Cath selects from her arsenal of tools. </p><p>Susan wants to look away and finds she cannot. Cath fluidly slices down the length of the cock, splitting it wide open. Neil thrashes his bull head, making these awful animal noises in his throat. Blood pours. </p><p>Cath cackles and moves the knife downward. She severs Neil’s sac in a deft circuit. More blood gushes forth as his balls slap the tarp. Neil’s head thrashes some more, eyes rolling back in his skull. His broken jaw hangs crooked and the animals noises don’t stop. </p><p>The blood is so dark, so much darker than Susan expected it to be. </p><p>“Iron,” Cath commands. </p><p>Susan’s hands shake but she tightens her grip and kneels anyway. She thrusts the hot soleplate against the bleeding, messy ruin where her husband’s genitalia was. There is a loud hiss as steam rises in the air. Neil’s head jerks forward with a wretched sound that makes Susan want to smother him, this throaty noise that might’ve been a scream were he not toothless, tongueless, broken jawed. </p><p>Neil vomits as his head flops back. Cath slaps his face to the side and it dribbles from the corner of his lips, spilling onto the tarp. The sickly sweet scent of sizzling meat suffuses Susan’s nostrils. </p><p>“Kill him,” Susan finds herself begging. “Please, please kill him now. I can’t stand that look in his eyes.” </p><p>The look in Neil’s eyes is everything Susan’s felt herself for so long, it’s never really left her. The helplessness that hooks claws into your stomach and drags who you want to be right out of you. The despair that sucks you dry and drowns your spirits. In Neil’s eyes, she sees the pain of husking, the emptiest misery she knows. </p><p>“You can’t stand it?” Cath repeats. “Fine.” </p><p>She angles Neil’s head toward the ceiling again. She grips his jaw to keep his head from thrashing as she slashes the knife across his eyes. They burst and Cath releases his jaw. Neil whips his head like a beast with ear mites. </p><p>“There, no more look in his eyes. Use the iron.” </p><p>Susan steels herself against the urge to gag and rises on her knees, moving toward his head. She presses the soleplate down on one messy socket. Then the other. </p><p>“Have you heard of rocky mountain oysters?” </p><p>“I haven’t,” Susan admits. </p><p>“Deep fried bull testicles,” Cath says. “Delicious. A damn delicacy if they’re prepared right.” </p><p>A strange grin stretches her lips from ear to ear she she holds up Neil’s bloodied sac. </p><p>“However,” she goes on, and Susan wouldn’t have thought it possible to sound vicious and jolly at the same time, but she does. Her voice rings viciously jolly, every syllable a razored candy cane. “We all know I can’t cook for shit. So if Susan hasn’t heard of them and I can’t cook, I guess we’ll just have to do something else.”</p><p>Susan wants to speak and somehow, somehow the words just tangle up on her tongue. </p><p>“Got a blender, don’t you, Susan? Housewife broad like you must’ve got a blender for some Christmas or birthday, no?” Cath lifts a brow. </p><p>“Yes,” she finally manages. “We have a blender.” </p><p>“Perfect. Grab his cock.” </p><p>Cath stands up and heads into the hallway, Neil’s scrotum clutched in her hand. Susan finds herself fretting about the possibility of it dripping blood on her carpet. She finds herself thinking that with all the preparation Cath has done, with how methodical she is about everything, she should’ve had a plastic bag handy to put that in. Susan isn’t particularly in the mood to scrub ballsack blood out of her carpet. </p><p>Susan picks up the dismembered penis, stares at it flaccid and spliced in her hands. It was inside of her countless times. It practically split her open whenever Neil was in one of those moods. It impregnated her once, a situation she’d had taken care of quickly, discreetly, heartbreakingly, secret to everyone but her stepson. Now it can’t hurt her anymore. No longer Neil’s, it’s just meat. </p><p>Susan rises to her feet. She shuffles to the kitchen with her husband’s split penis cupped in her hands. She doesn’t know when she starts laughing. She doesn’t know when she starts crying, either. </p><p>She only knows that once she makes it over the threshold, she is both laughing and crying and the look Cath gives her is simply something else entirely. </p><p>“Fuck, Susan, don’t go all Loony Toons on me.” </p><p>Cath is at the counter, evidently having found the blender, in the middle of removing its lid. She drops Neil’s testicles inside. They land with a soft plunk.</p><p>“I’m never going to be able to make smoothies with that blender again,” Susan says, an observation more than a protest. </p><p>Cath pays no mind and hits the button. Susan listens and it’s disgusting. It’s so disgusting and Susan’s still crying, still laughing. Nervous notes of laughter hiccup up her throat while tears trickle down her cheeks. Her mouth tastes like salt. Her upper lip is sticky with mucus. She wants to wipe it away but she still has a dismembered penis in her hands. </p><p>When what’s inside the blender becomes a slurry mash, Cath turns it off. She takes a glass out of the cabinet and pops the top off the blender, transferring the mash to the cup. </p><p>“This is his dinner,” Cath declares. “What you’ve got will be his breakfast. We’ll keep it in the fridge.” </p><p>Susan is sure there’s a part of her that isn’t okay with this. She keeps finding herself in these positions. Where she isn’t okay with things but she can’t stop them either. Where she isn’t okay but she has to be, because not being okay will only make things worse, actually. </p><p>Susan dumps Neil’s member into the blender and reseals the lid. She turns the button on. Susan isn’t sure if the sound of it is less disgusting this time, or if she’s simply more prepared for it. She blows her nose into a napkin and brushes her tears off on the back of her sleeve. </p><p>When the penis is thoroughly pureed, she presses the button again. The blades cease whirring. Cath said to refrigerate it, so that’s what she does. She removes the blender container from the base and makes room for it on the top shelf, in between the eggs and milk. </p><p>“You’ll hold his mouth open and I’ll pour it in, okay?” </p><p>“Okay,” Susan agrees, as if disagreement were an option. </p><p>When they return to the bedroom, Susan lowers herself to her knees on either side of Neil’s head. She presses them against his temples, holding his head in place. In this moment, she feels an unsettling but undeniable sense of gratitude that he doesn’t have eyes anymore. She doesn’t think she’d be able to stomach him staring up at her from this angle. He can’t see her and this is some kind of comforting. </p><p>She slides her hands over his crooked jaw. Because of the way it’s broken it can’t fully close, but Susan opens it wider anyway. She can feel bone fragments shifting under her touch. She hears it too, the quiet grinding. </p><p>“Yes, Susan,” Cath praises. “Just like that.” </p><p>She moves the rim of the glass over his lip and tilts so slowly, the slowest Susan thinks she’s ever watched her do anything. </p><p>“I’d swallow if I were you,” Cath suggests above him, voice stunningly soft. “If you throw up, I’ll make you eat your vomit. You know I will.” </p><p>Whatever scraps of resistance Neil had left leak out of him. Susan swears she can feel it happen. The will to fight dissipating inside him like it’s dissipated inside her time and time again. She feels it happen right between her knees. </p><p>Cath pours and Neil swallows.</p><p>Neil’s throat bobs with every gulp. </p><p>It doesn’t matter if Susan’s okay with it or not. When has it ever. Maybe she isn’t quite okay with this but if should happen to anyone, it should happen to Neil. She feels many things for Neil. Sympathy is not one of them. </p><p> Susan doesn’t shudder even though it’s revolting. </p><p>“Almost done,” Cath taunts, tilting the glass up higher. </p><p>The last of it slides down Neil’s throat. Susan watches him swallow and releases. She stands up and walks around Cath to wash her hands in the bathroom sink. </p><p>Shortly after, Cath goes to bed. Susan knows she couldn’t sleep if she tried. She cleans instead. She uses a lot of bleach and scrubs until her eyes water from the scent, and even longer after, when she’s so accustomed she can hardly smell it at all. </p><hr/><p>Susan holds Neil’s head with her knees again in the morning, while Cath slowly pours the lumpy puree of his penis down his throat. He does throw up this time and Susan has to shuffle back so Cath can smack his head to the side, prevent him from choking on it. It spews out of him and splashes the tarp and the noises he makes in the wake of it are so wretched Susan wants to stuff cotton in her ears. </p><p>True to her word, Cath makes Neil eat the vomit. The room stinks so much. It stunk before the fresh vomit, of the feces neither of them will clean off Neil, of raw meat and burnt hair. The sourness of regurgitation has joined the party to create a blend unspeakably foul. </p><p>“I should light some candles,” Susan decides. </p><p>“Huh?” </p><p>“Scented candles. I can hardly breathe in here.” </p><p>Cath rolls her eyes. “You think this is smelly? Try stage three decomp.” </p><p>“I’d rather not, I’m getting candles and…maybe some Lysol.” Susan rises and takes her exit. </p><p>She raids the linen closet for candles with names like Lavender Meadow and Spring Breeze. She bundles them in her arms and returns to the room, arranging them on the dresser betwixt some of Cath’s tools. </p><p>“Can I borrow your lighter?” </p><p>Cath hands it up to her with a faint snort.</p><p>“Thank you.” Susan lights each wick and returns the lighter. </p><p>Cath pockets it and tells Susan to ready the iron as she dances her fingertips over an array of knives. She picks a slimmer blade than the hunting knife she used yesterday. Neil’s broken fingers are swollen, purple and fat like ripe eggplants connected to his equally broken, equally swollen hands. Cath fans them out and begins to cut them off. </p><p>She severs them one by one, beginning with the pinky. Susan watches with one hand on the iron and cauterizes when she is told. </p><p>She can barely smell her candles over the cooking skin and her stomach is already turning over before Cath asks for help gathering the fingers. </p><p>Following her into the kitchen, Susan isn’t sure what’s worse, watching Cath stuff Neil’s fingers down the garbage disposal or the roar of the motor when she flicks the switch, the harsh grinding of meat and bone. She gnaws her nails as the nausea swells inside her. Swears she can feel herself going green while Cath is cool as a cucumber, blinking sleepily as she switches the disposal off. </p><p>“I can feel you judging me,” she drawls over the sound of the motor dying down. </p><p>“W-What?” </p><p>“You’re judging me,” Cath repeats, stretching like a house cat, blood stained hands above her head. “Looking at me all doe eyed. Pretending you’re innocent as if you’re not the very reason I’m here.” </p><p>“I’m not,” Susan whispers, breath catching in her throat. “N-Not in the least.” </p><p>“You are. Clasping your hands like some nun in prayer while I’m slicing up his.” Cath lowers her arms. “Thinking you’re better than me, as if you aren’t enjoying this.” </p><p>“I d-don’t,” Susan splutters, shaking her head. “I’m not judging you, I swear, but I don’t…I don’t take any pleasure in this.” </p><p>Susan’s seen more than enough violence in her life. She doesn’t regret her decision to contact Cath. Neil needed to be dealt with one way or the other, and this way was free of charge. It was the best decision she could make but she’s far from reveling it in. It’s hideous business.</p><p>“Sure you do.” Cath rolls her eyes, sauntering across the linoleum. “Quit lying to yourself and just own it, Susan. You’ll sleep easier at night.” </p><p>Susan swallows and watches a lazy smirk twitch upon Cath’s chapped lips. </p><p>“Don’t be shy, baby, it’s okay. Bastard’s been smacking you around for years, enjoying this is just human nature.” </p><p>“Oh, he never, um…Neil never hit me,” Susan murmurs, frowning at the floor as she anxiously twirls a lock of red around her finger. </p><p>Neil was rough with her in bed, never bothered to ask what Susan was or wasn’t comfortable with. Kissed her silent before she could plead not now, not tonight. Sometimes he squeezed her wrist to tug her along if he felt like she was dawdling or pinched her stomach with a firm suggestion to keep it trim. But he never quite struck her. He saved his fists and his belt for Billy alone. </p><p>“What?” Cath demands. </p><p>Susan glances up. The smirk is gone from the blonde woman’s lips, everything lackadaisical vanished from her face and posture. Her eyes are bright and wide now, shockingly alert. It’s an expression Susan recognizes in an instant, the one that always fixed Billy’s face right before he began breaking things. </p><p>Susan flounders for a reply and then quick as lightning, Cath’s got a fistful of her hair. She yanks viciously. Sparks explode through Susan’s vision as her skull is cracked against the countertop. Next thing she knows, she’s on the floor. It happens so fast she doesn’t understand how, wind knocked from her chest. </p><p>Above her, Cath smashes a plate against the counter. She straddles Susan with one sharp shard clutched in her hand, the other encircling her throat. </p><p>“What makes you so fucking special?” she spits. </p><p>Blood weeps from the wound in Susan’s temple, warm as it trickles down her skin. </p><p>“I said, what makes you so fucking special!?” Cath presses the jagged edge of the plate shard under her chin, eyes blazing. </p><p>Susan is acutely aware of the sharp ceramic flush against her fragile skin, the pressure on her throat increasing as Cath’s patience wanes and her grip tightens. Resistance is a passing thought she puts no action into. Cath is smaller than Neil but she’s denser than Susan, quicker than Susan, crueler than Susan. A snarling killer with a weapon in her hand. In any case, Susan hasn’t struggled against anything or anyone in so long, she’s not sure she even remembers how. </p><p>“I’m not,” she croaks. “I’m not, I wasn’t.” </p><p>“No?” she bows, blonde tresses falling loose and brushing over Susan’s cheeks as wet warmth wells under the plate shard. “Neil must’ve thought you were damn special to keep his hands off you.” </p><p>Susan draws a shaky breath and gives a small, defeated shake of the head. </p><p>“He didn’t have to hit me to hurt me,” she pules, despair thick and rancid on her tongue. “He didn’t need his fists to cow me, didn’t need to break my bones to break me down. He didn’t have to…he didn’t have to lift a fucking finger to make me feel as low as an earthworm.” </p><p>Her husband was more than one kind of bully. The shouts were enough to shut her down. Every unkind word and insult well placed, barbs like booby traps expertly sprung. The glacial glares and detached dismantling of her defenses from the inside out. Once Neil found his way inside her head, it was a death of a thousand invisible cuts. He’s physically debilitated and voiceless in the spare bedroom, but everything he brought still crawls around Susan’s mind, possesses every fiber of her being like some wrathful ghost. </p><p>Neil never had to hit her to make sure she knew he could and really, Susan always felt like one day he would. She’d listen to him dish his worst out on Billy however many rooms she was away and felt inevitably the day would come where his fists reached her too. And Susan would deserve it, of course, she knew she would deserve it because she had to be everything Neil convinced her she was. She hadn’t left him and surely that was proof enough she was every sour insult he hurled at her, shouted with enough force to strain his vocal cords, poured like poison right into her ear. Susan was everything less than who she should’ve been and she’ll never, ever stop choking on it. Neil never had to touch her to shove that down her throat. </p><p>Cath stares at her hard as her fingernails bite into Susan’s neck. She delicately draws the shard up, its tip grazing over her cheekbone. </p><p>“Please don’t hurt me,” she murmurs even though she knows it doesn’t matter, it could never matter. Perhaps she even deserves to be hurt. </p><p>“I’m not,” Cath whispers, pushing the edge into Susan’s skin. “Not even close.” </p><p>“So you’re going to kill me?”</p><p>“Do you know why he could make you feel like that?” Cath asks, Susan’s question going unanswered as she uses the shard to sweep her bangs aside. “Low as a worm in the dirt?” </p><p>“Please…” </p><p>“Because you are.” Cath bears her teeth in a Cheshire grin. “He knew it then, I know it now, and you know it too.” </p><p>A knot forms in Susan’s stomach. She feels the bloody trickles going tacky on her temple, the dull pain pounding underneath. </p><p>“I can see right through your Bambi eyes. I know what you are. I bet your daughter does too.” </p><p>She’s going to kill her. Susan stares up at the beautiful ocean gaze sawing into hers and she knows, oh, she knows. When Max and Billy come back from vacation, they’ll find two bodies in this house. They’ll call the police but no one will ever solve the crime. Susan holds Cath’s stare and she knows this as well as she knows all the wretched things spoken above her to be true. </p><p>“Sweet, hapless Susan.” Cath traces her lips with the tip of the shard, nearly but-not-quite nicking the delicate flesh. “You really think I’d hurt you?” </p><p>Susan’s lips soundlessly part. </p><p>“I don’t want to hurt you, winsome, woeful worm of mine. I only want to make you squirm.” </p><p>Cath tosses the shard behind her head. It lands with a clatter. Her opposite hand relaxes the grip on Susan’s throat as she shifts back. Cath pushes her skirt up, the light, summery fabric hiked above her hips. She doesn’t break Susan’s gaze as she strokes her through her underwear, fingertips roving over her folds. </p><p><em>Oh.</em> </p><p>Susan obediently spreads her legs and Cath snakes her hand past the panties, elastic pulling taut to her hips. Cath squeezes her neck and mouths over Susan’s lips as she draws a burdened breath. The pressure against her trachea is firm, unmovable and unforgiving. Fingers strum the seam of her entrance with purposeful teasing, the pad of a thumb presses so hard to her clit it hurts and releases just as abruptly. </p><p>Susan wiggles her hips, begs, “please,” past the pressure of Cath’s death grip even though she’s no longer sure what she’s pleading for. </p><p>Cath snags Susan’s bottom lip between her teeth and slides two fingers inside. Thrusts them in an eager, urgent rhythm. Her thumb returns to Susan’s clit, grinds down so hard tears prick Susan’s eyes. </p><p>All her heat rushes downward. She’s throbbing under Cath’s touch, skin aflame as she struggles for breath the woman just won’t let her take in full. Her teeth release Susan’s lip and she almost feels disappointment when the sting disappears. </p><p>Cath works her clit mercilessly and Susan loses her head in a fog of pleasure and pain. She’s helium light and burning, burning everywhere. Lungs burning for air, flesh burning for more. </p><p>“Please,” she rasps. </p><p>“Squirm.” Cath smirks above her, thumb digging into the dip of her throat. </p><p>Susan squirms. Her hips buck skyward. She writhes and arches beneath the glorious agony of Cath’s touch, tips her head back as much as she can with the vise around her neck. </p><p>“That’s right,” the woman praises above her, voice like velvet. </p><p>Her fingers move faster and Susan throbs harder, hotter. Cath rolls her thumb over her clit in just the right way as the pressure against her throat suddenly releases. The inferno between her thighs peaks and Susan lets out a moan as she clenches around Cath’s fingers, stars spinning through her dizzy head. </p><p>Cath slides her hand free and stands up. Eyes glittering, she splays her fingers. She slowly, deliberately licks the slick off each one as Susan watches from below, boneless, catching her breath. </p><p>“Meet me in the workshop when you’re ready.” Cath winks and saunters from the kitchen, footsteps echoing with that feline grace. </p><p>Eventually Susan sits up. She glances down to see red smears stark on the fabric of her soaked through panties, smudged along the inside of her thighs. For a heartbeat she mistakes it for menstruation and then she realizes no, it’s Neil’s blood. </p><p>Cath had Neil’s blood crusted on her hands. Susan’s slick made it wet again. Susan draws herself to a stand even though her legs feel like gelatin. She fetches the broom and dustpan. Sweeps up the broken plate. On the shard Cath held to her neck, there’s another small smudge of red. Susan doesn’t think it’s Neil’s. </p><p>Cath’s cackling sounds from down the hallway. Susan dumps the mess into the trash and leaves to join her. </p><p>Whether she likes to watch or not, she knows she’s meant to. She knows that if she doesn’t want her children to return to two bodies, she must. Cath is stomping up and down on Neil’s face, blood splashing her combat boots. His broken jaw flops about, the crepitus audible under the fury of thick rubber soles. </p><p>“Whoo!” Cath pumps her fist as she smashes her boot one more time, dead center in his face. Something snaps. More cartilage. Maybe a cheekbone. </p><p>When she turns back to Susan, her eyes are wild. “You’re goddamn lucky you found me, you know that, right?” </p><p>Bizarrely enough, it sounds exactly like the kind of thing Neil would say to her. Susan suppresses a shiver and bows her head. </p><p>“I am.” </p><p>“What would you do, if you didn’t find me, huh?” Cath perches on the edge of the bed that used to be Billy’s and pats the spot next to her. “You don’t have the dough to pay for a hit.” </p><p>Susan steps around Neil on the floor, the tang of raw meat sharp in the air. “I don’t know.” </p><p>“Guess you’d have to kill him yourself then.” Cath digs a cigarette out of her purse and flips her lighter open, bringing it to the flame. “How would you do it?” </p><p>“I don’t know,” Susan says quietly, turning away from the smoke. </p><p>Cath grabs her by the chin and turns her face right back, forcing Susan to meet her gaze. </p><p>“No. You must’ve thought about it, so tell me.” </p><p>“Well…I have this dream sometimes, where I get the axe from the garage.” Susan tries not to appear as uncomfortable as she feels as she kneads at her upper arm. “Usually I wake up after I, um…cut his head off.” </p><p>“Ah, decapitation. Fancy yourself this century’s Judith of Israel?” </p><p>Susan flutters in surprise. </p><p>“Yeah, I know you, Sunday School.” Cath rolls her eyes. “Always do some digging before I take on new clients.” </p><p>Susan doesn’t ask what else she knows. She only nods and exhales, shifts her eyes to Neil on the floor. She watches the blood flow from his broken nose. </p><p>“Dreams are just dreams. I could never do anything like that.”</p><p>“Right, that’s why I had to fly out to Bumfuck Nowhere, Indi-fucking-ana to do your dirty work for you.” </p><p>Susan shies away from the venom in her voice. </p><p>“Got that look on your face again,” Cath declares icily. “Like you’re thinking you’re better than me.” </p><p>“I don’t.” The cut on her neck gives a pointed sting and Susan imagines Cath crushing her lit cigarette out against her forearm. “Actually, you’re better than me. That’s why I need you. I’m not strong enough to do this by myself and you’re right, I couldn’t afford another professional.” </p><p>Susan swallows and hesitantly places her hand on Cath’s thigh. Defaulting to ego-stroking does not always yield success. But Susan thinks it’s safer to try. It often softens the blow, at least. </p><p>“Is that axe still in your garage?” </p><p>Susan’s fingertips brush dried smears over her temple as she tucks her hair back. “Yes.” </p><p>“Go get it.” </p><p>“What do you need it for?” </p><p>“You know you’ll find out soon enough.” </p><p>Susan contemplates the necessity of such a thing, eyes roaming over Cath’s arsenal of specialized pliers and knives and hammers. She doesn’t ask a second time. She rises to her feet and steps around Neil. </p><p>She purposely keeps her mind blank as she does as she’s told, fetching the axe from the garage. She at least has the foresight to put it in a cardboard box first. If any neighbors happen to be looking in her direction, they won’t see a woman carrying an axe into the house. They’ll see a woman carrying a cardboard box.</p><p>“Cut his arms off,” Cath instructs. </p><p>Susan balks. “But they’re already broken.” </p><p>“No shit. I did half the breaking, didn’t I?” Cath exhales a stream of smoke in Susan’s direction and bends down, casually crushing it out against Neil’s belly. A quiver ripples through his frame. “I just don’t particularly care to see them attached to him anymore.” </p><p>Susan purses her lips, can’t tell if Cath is kidding or not. </p><p>“What’re you waiting for? The axe is literally your dream weapon. Go wild.” </p><p>She isn’t kidding. More soft, wounded noises rumble in Neil’s throat. He can still hear them, after all. </p><p>“I’ll cover the iron this time.” </p><p>Susan adjusts her grip on the handle of the axe. Her palms never sweat in her dreams. She brings it back and swings down as hard as she can. Neil’s head thrashes. He makes more noises but the noises are so tired they’re tedious. </p><p>Susan wrenches the axe free.</p><p>Susan swings again, aiming at her first slice. She feels it go deeper. Some of the splatter gets on her face.</p><p>“Almost,” Cath says from somewhere. </p><p>After several swings, his dismembered arm lies slack on the tarp.</p><p>“This is what the coolers are for,” Susan realizes. Maybe she’d always known, perhaps she simply didn’t want to admit she knew. </p><p>“Indeed they are.” Cath sets the iron aside and stands, hand sliding along Susan’s jaw as she kisses her. </p><p>Susan has an axe in her hand and blood on her face and Cath wants— well, maybe tasting the blood is what she wants. Susan tastes it too as Cath’s tongue darts between her teeth, swirls over her own. </p><p>“One more arm,” Cath urges against her lips. “You’re halfway there.” </p><p>Susan squeezes her eyes shut tight and kisses back heatedly. </p><hr/><p>“Do you suppose I can skip this week’s aerobics tape?” </p><p>Cath lifts her chin from her hand and squints at Susan suspiciously. </p><p>“Well, all of this, um, hammer swinging and axe swinging. It’s very physical, I’d think on par with Jazzercise…” </p><p>“Wow. As peculiar as you are pathetic,” Cath drawls, dropping her hand back into her chin. “What a combo, color me impressed.” </p><p>Susan sips her mint tea and decides she’ll pop in this week’s tape anyway. She thinks sticking to her routine as best she can might help her feel normal. She’d like to feel normal. And it’ll be nice to be able to do it without Neil making fun of her leotard, snapping at her to turn the volume down although she always set only just loud enough to hear, or painfully pinching her ass and scoffing that it was fat as ever, that she was lucky he’d tolerate such a flabby caboose because most men wouldn’t. </p><p>Yes. She thinks it will be rather nice to do her Jazzercise and retain some normalcy, and do so without Neil’s barbwire presence at her back. She thinks it will be nice indeed. </p><p>“Are you sure you don’t want any tea?” </p><p>“Yeah,” Cath mutters. “I’m more of a coffee person.” </p><p>“I could make you coffee.” </p><p>Cath shakes her head. “One of us should sleep.” </p><hr/><p>Susan participates more and more over the next couple days. Cath snuffs her cigarettes into his skin and Susan sears the iron into his skin overtop the smaller circular burns they make at her behest. Cath enjoys grinding the heel of her boot right down on the ruination of his crotch. She grinds and grinds, cackling like a witch stirring her cauldron. Susan doesn’t do that, but at some point she takes the sledgehammer to his pelvis. </p><p>Neil is scarcely recognizable. Contusions and burns ravage his torso. His broken legs are twisted like the pipe cleaner crafts she used to make with Max before Max grew out of such things, swollen beyond swollen and blotched with deep bruising. </p><p>“Could they even identify him like this?” </p><p>“Come again?” </p><p>Susan swallows and gives Cath a dubious look. </p><p>“Theoretically,  if Neil was found somewhere like this, could anyone identify him?” </p><p>They took out his teeth, so surely that renders dental records unobtainable. His fingers went down the garbage disposal even before Susan chopped off his arms. How could fingerprints be of use when he doesn’t have any left? </p><p>“Oh, he could be more unrecognizable than this.” Cath tugs Neil’s ear and lops it off simply to prove a point. </p><p>Susan supposes it’s not quite an answer, at least not to the question she’d asked. It could be an answer to the question she didn’t ask. </p><hr/><p>“I’m breaking my own rule again,” Cath sighs, leaning back on the couch and blowing smoke through her nose. “What’s Billy like?” </p><p>Susan blinks rapidly, caught off guard.</p><p>“He’s, um, really bright. Very observant, intelligent, although you might only notice when he isn’t being too stubborn to bother. He’s that too sometimes.” </p><p>The way Cath smiles is so gentle it’s almost jarring against the flecks of blood painting the plane of her face. </p><p>“Protective,” Susan goes on, shiny, puckered tissue in her mind’s eye, wrapped all around his torso like insidious spider legs and centered bullseye in his chest. “Unbelievably, blessedly protective.” </p><p>“He get along with Max?” </p><p>Susan doesn’t like hearing her daughter’s name in a murderer’s mouth. It crawls beneath her skin. </p><p>“Better now,” she answers anyway. “Much better now.” </p><p>“Hmm.” Cath takes another drag. Smoke plumes from her nostrils and Susan thinks of fire breathing dragons. “I think I’d be better at the mom gig now. Older, wiser, not attached to any asshole man.” </p><p>Susan’s fingers itch toward the adhesive bandage she’d plastered over the gash Cath left in her temple and a chill rakes her spine. </p><p>“Got more money now too. I make bank, Sue. Say what you will about my occupation, I never go to bed hungry.” Cath flicks her cigarette into the ashtray. “Maybe I should adopt. Think I’d prefer an older kid to a baby.” </p><p>Susan feels many things she thinks it would be unwise to convey, so she does not. She nods along and wrings her hands. Evidently she does not do a good enough job. </p><p>“There you go, judging me again,” Cath scoffs. “Like you’re some prize-winner parent. Fucking hypocrite.” </p><p>“I’m not, I’m not judging you at all!” </p><p>“Hypocrite and a liar.” </p><p>Susan tenses as Cath leans across the cushions. The other woman’s hand snakes beneath her blouse. She pinches Susan’s nipple between two fingers and twists until she cries out. Cuts the cry short and crushes it out beneath lips that taste like smoke and blood. </p><p>“Goddamn,” she murmurs into Susan’s mouth. “You’re goddamn beautiful garbage.” </p><p>Susan kisses her back. </p><hr/><p>“That’s the thing they never tell you. You don’t have to be the bigger monster or even the scarier monster. You just have to be the hungrier one. How hungry are you, Susan?” </p><p>“I don’t know what you mean by that, I don’t understand at all.” </p><p>“Oh, but I think you do.” Cath’s breasts squish between Susan’s shoulder blades as she presses ever closer. Her fingers dance down Susan’s arm, steady hand sliding overtop her own shaky one and closing it around the saw. “And I think you’re ravenous.” </p><p>Susan’s not. Cath’s wrong. </p><p>She isn’t ravenous. She isn’t even enough, she isn’t anything at all. She isn’t, she’s not. But by the end— by the end of the night—</p><p>Well, by the end of the night most of Neil’s legs are packed into coolers. His thighs end in stumps. </p><p>Cath’s laugh tickles over the shell of her ear. Grinning lips gently press to the nape of her neck. </p><hr/><p>“My children will be back tomorrow.” </p><p>“So it’s time to wrap it up then.” Cath bobs her head. </p><p>Susan stares very hard at the floor. She swallows and flexes her fingers. </p><p>“You’ll give him a heart attack.” </p><p>“That’s usually how I do things.” </p><p>“And it will be painless?” </p><p>“Comparatively.” </p><p>“You know, some of those assisted living arrangements are rather sketchy. The smaller ones run out of people’s homes especially.” </p><p>“Come again?” Cath tilts her head. </p><p>“I was thinking perhaps we send Neil somewhere. One of those homes for the elderly and disabled. I think it’s possible while the kids were at Cedar Point, my husband and I went on a vacation of our own. I think it’s rather possible his rented four-wheeler crashed and caught fire.” </p><p>“Is it now?” Cath raises a brow. </p><p>“I think so,” Susan decides, quiet and dull as she lifts one of the sledgehammers. </p><p>“Even if we put him in the seediest roach infested place we could find, that would add up to quite the bill.” </p><p>“It is my understanding that your line of work is rather lucrative.” </p><p>“And why would I do that for you?” Cath asks but even now she’s smirking, teasing twinkle in her eyes. </p><p>“Not for me. For him,” Susan says, lightly nudging the raw stump of Neil’s upper arm with the head of the hammer. He twitches. He cannot do any more than twitch. “For this man to continue living his life.” </p><p>“Hear that, Neil?” Cath leans down and slides her hand down the underside of his crooked, swollen jaw. Pokes her thumb into his mouth and presses hard on the tender toothless gum. “We’re gonna spare you.” </p><p>Susan lets go of the hammer. She doesn’t know why she picked it up to begin with. </p><p>“May you live a long life and may you never know peace again.” Cath jerks her hand out of his mouth. His jaw creaks with crepitus.  </p><p>She doesn’t walk around him. She steps on him to get to Susan, stamping down on his stomach with a giddy huff. Neil makes a sound too and Susan is so utterly exhausted of his noises, quiet though they are. </p><p>“It’ll cost me a pretty penny but I like it. I like the way you think.” </p><p>Susan doesn’t go slack as she is kissed, although it is her first instinct. There are hornets buzzing in her head but that heat is back. It burns so hot it’s nearly excruciating. Cath hooks two fingers around her underwear, pushes it aside. </p><p>She shoves her back onto the bed and Susan tries not to think about— </p><hr/><p>Susan helps Cath clean up, scrubbing the outsides of the coolers and washing blood from her weapons. She helps her load the van. The coolers are heavier than they were when they didn’t have Neil’s parts in them, wrapped in wax paper like cuts from the butcher. The duffles and totes weigh about the same. </p><p>“I won’t see you again, will I?” </p><p>“Probably not. I don’t take repeat customers. Or in this case, repeat freeloaders.”</p><p>Cath’s lips brush over the healing scabs on Susan’s temple before she struts down the walkway and gets in the driver’s seat. They couldn’t cut it closer. The gray van drives away just as the Camaro pulls up. Susan waves from the porch. </p><p>Max gets out of the car first, red hair flying behind her as she bounds up to Susan. Billy follows after, a look of uncertainty on his face. </p><p>“Who was that?” he asks. </p><p>“Old friend from high school. She stopped for a visit on her way to see some relatives.” </p><p>“You had friends in high school?” Max’s face screws up in disbelief. </p><p>“…much appreciated, Maxine.” </p><p>Billy lightly slugs her shoulder but that smirk tugging at his lips tells Susan he thinks it’s funny too. </p><p>“Why don’t you two come in for a minute?” Susan suggests. “Have some water, take a breather before you unpack.” </p><p>“I wasn’t going to unpack,” Max says. “I was going to go back to Billy’s, we just wanted to see you first.” </p><p>Before Susan can reply, Billy notices her wound. </p><p>“What’s that?” he demands, eyes narrowing. </p><p>“It’s nothing.” Susan messes with her hair, sweeps her bangs in a belated attempt to conceal the sight. “I took a little tumble in the kitchen, knocked into the countertop.” </p><p>“Bullshit,” Billy snarls. “I’ll kill him!” </p><p>And he storms past Susan, charging toward the house. </p><p>“B-Billy, wait! It really wasn’t Neil!” </p><p>This part is indeed a truth but he doesn’t turn around and Susan hurries after him, and then Max pelts after her. They more or less all fly over the threshold at the same time. Susan tugs on Billy’s arm to deter him. Max’s hand immediately goes to her nose. </p><p>“Oh my god, what the hell is that horrible smell?” </p><p>Susan looks to her in confusion. “It…it smells all the way out here?” </p><p>She’d thought the odor was confined in the room. But both Max and Billy nod at her. </p><p>“Forget to take the garbage out?” Billy asks. “That why he hit you?” </p><p>“He didn’t,” Susan repeats. “He couldn’t now, it’s um, it’s not the garbage that smells. I’m sorry you two, if I’d known it was spreading through the whole house, I would’ve lit more candles. I guess I’m just too acclimated to realize, I’ve gone nose blind to it.” </p><p>“To what?” Max asks, frowning as worry swims in her eyes. “What is that,  Mom?” </p><p>“It’s, um, well. It’s Neil,” she answers. </p><p>Billy and Max exchange looks so fast Susan almost doesn’t catch it. </p><p>She knows neither of her children are going to swallow the story but it’s the only story she has and so, it’s what she tells them. </p><p>“Neil and I went on vacation too. We rented a cabin. He crashed the four-wheeler and it um, exploded. He was gravely injured, you see…it was um, it was so bad…” </p><p>No. They aren’t buying it at all. They’re both gawking at Susan as if she’s a raving lunatic.</p><p>“It’s a miracle he survived at all, really. He’s lost his limbs, his eyes, his teeth…” </p><p>Max’s jaw just about hits the floor and Billy’s eyes are so wide she can see the whites all around. </p><p>“To add insult to injury,” Susan winces at the poorly placed, unintended pun. “Neil quit his job before we went on vacation. No medical insurance anymore, so I simply couldn’t take him to the hospital. The bills would be enormous, I just had to do what I could by myself and um, well…luckily my friend Cath knows a lot about anatomy. So she helped me patch him up as best I could.” </p><p>“Mom.” Max reaches up and firmly grips her shoulders. “Are you on drugs?” </p><p>“You can see him for yourself if you want,” Susan breathes warily, speaking to the both of them. “He’s in the spare bedroom. My friend and I laid towels down and she helped me get him up there.” </p><p>Neil was significantly lighter than the day they’d dragged him, virtually half-starved and missing all four limbs. </p><p>Billy ducks down the hall first. Max hesitates, staring hard at Susan, hands still on her shoulders. </p><p>“As much as I don’t want you to see anything that may be upsetting, perhaps you should go with him.” </p><p>Because at the end of the day, Neil was still Billy’s father. He shouldn’t have to see him in such a state alone. Max’s expression of ardent disbelief morphs into something else. She releases her mother’s shoulders and jogs to catch up with her brother. </p><p>Susan doesn’t follow them. But she hears it when they see. Neither of them scream but. </p><p>But they are not silent. </p><p>Susan’s already covering her mouth when they come charging back. </p><p>“What did you do?” Billy’s snapping at her and he sounds like Neil but he looks like Cath and Susan isn’t actually sure which part has her stepping backward and shying away. </p><p>Max not so subtly steps between them but she doesn’t look any happier. </p><p>“You’re angry with me?” </p><p>“You— You planned something,” Max stutters out, hard look in her eye. “Cedar Point was your idea. You sent us away.” </p><p>“I wanted you to have a good vacation,” Susan insists and this is not the whole truth of course, but it is one truth. One of many. </p><p>“What the fuck happened?” Billy’s nostrils flare but he’s made an effort to lower the volume and for that, Susan is grateful. </p><p>“I told you what happened.” </p><p>“What really happened?” Max plants her hands on her hips. </p><p>“I told you—“ </p><p>“Bullshit,” Billy cuts her off. </p><p>“Stop lying!” Max snaps.</p><p>“Fine!” Susan throws her hands up. “You want to know what really happened? Tell me the truth about Starcourt first.” </p><p>At this, they both snap ramrod straight. </p><p>“If you want me to confess, you’ll have to do the same,” Susan says tartly, crossing her arms. “Your lie is the older one.” </p><p>Max glances to Billy, who glances to the floor. </p><p>“I know it wasn’t shrapnel, your wounds were too symmetrical.” </p><p>She’d bought it at first, simply didn’t think to question it, distraught and distracted with more urgent concerns. But Billy’d said some very odd things while doped up and Max got agitated and snippy whenever she tried to press for more details and the newspaper hardly had any details at all. Susan doesn’t have the faintest clue what actually happened or why they would hide it from her, but she knew enough to know that they were, in fact, hiding it from her. </p><p>“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” Max says eventually. </p><p>Billy looks a bit like he might be ill, doesn’t add anything even when Susan glances his way.</p><p>“Well…you probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you what actually happened with Neil. But I hope you know what you saw, it— it wasn’t what I’d anticipated.” </p><p>“What’s going to happen to him now?” Billy asks, solemn as he raises his head. </p><p>“My friend made arrangements for a friend of hers to pick Neil up sometime tomorrow afternoon in between noon and three. He’ll be taken to an assisted living facility in Detroit.” Susan sighs out, rubs her temples out of habit and doesn’t wince even though her scabby knot twinges in protest. “I know it’s far away but such places tend to be expensive and this one was affordable…and less likely to question somewhat unusual paperwork.” </p><p>Both her kids are staring at her, the one she bore and the one she didn’t. Susan is too tired to wonder what they see. Too jaded to hope it isn’t what— </p><p>“I’m glad it’s far away,” Max spits with a sudden fury. “I hate him. If I never, ever saw Neil again, it’d be too soon.” </p><p>“None of us have any reason to visit him,” Billy agrees, giving a jerk of the head as his eyes go steely. “I was ready to kill him less than an hour ago.” </p><p>Susan goes boneless with relief. She exhales a long breath and feels ten pounds lighter. </p><p>“We turned onto the street just as your friend was getting in the van,” Billy says suddenly, brow creasing in consideration. “Caught a glimpse of her. Even with the distance, she looked kind of familiar…” </p><p>Susan swallows and hopes her next lie will be more convincing. </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i'm still so bummed abt caos smfh. what kinda bs.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>have i mentioned yet today how attached i am to morally ambivalent susan bc i am v attached to morally ambivalent susan. do not particularly like billy's mom bc leaving him with neil was fucking cruel but she's hot and i'm a thirsty ghoul, so. took a crack at her anyway. ig this is my gimmick now, taking stabs (ba dum tss) in the dark at the characterization of non-entity milfs in shows i don't watch whilst puffing away on my literary crack pipe.</p><p>also this was kind of practice for a caos fic i've been planning. it'll be zelda (possibly marie and/or lilith too) torturing faustus. that one will be more graphic since faustus can withstand more than neil and tbh i'll prolly have zelda hex him so he literally can't die during the torture. therefore she can get away with more than here, but this was still a fun practice round.</p><p>speaking of caos, that's why this is kinda rushed. defo *not* my best work but i wanted to be rid of it before caos s4 drops tmrow.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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